Price  :  6  cts.  single ;  60  cts.  per  doz. ;  $4  per  hundred. 


THE  STATE  OF  THE  COUNTRY. 


From  tlie  Princeton  Review,  January,  1861. 


There  are  periods  in  the  history  of  every  nation  when  its  des¬ 
tiny  for  ages  may  be  determined  by  the  events  of  an  hour.  There 
are  occasions  when  political  questions  rise  into  the  sphere  of  morals 
and  religion ;  when  the  rule  for  political  action  is  to  be  sought,  not 
in  considerations  of  state  policy,  but  in  the  law  of  God.  On  such 
occasions. the  distinction  between  secular  and  religious  journals  is 
obliterated.  When  the  question  to  be  decided  turns  on  moral 
principles,  when  reason,  conscience,  and  religious  sentiment  are  to 
be  addressed,  it  is  the  privilege  and  duty  of  all  who  have  access  in 
any  way  to  the  public  ear,  to  endeavor  to  allay  unholy  feeling,  and 
to  bring  truth  to  bear  on  the  minds  of  their  fellow-citizens.  If  any 
other  consideration  be  needed  to  justify  the  discussion,  in  these 
pages,  of  the  disruption  of  this  great  confederacy,  it  may  be  found 
not  only  in  the  portentous  consequences  of  such  disruption  to  the 
welfare  and  happiness  of  the  country  and  to  the  general  interests 
of  the  'world,  but  also  in  its  bearing  on  the  Church  of  Christ  and 
the  progress  of  his  kingdom.  Until  within  a  few  years  there  was 
no  diversity  of  opinion  on  this  subject.  It  was  admitted  that  the 
value  of  the  union  of  these  states  did  not  admit  of  calculation. 
As  no  man  allowed  himself  to  count  the  worth  of  the  family 
union,  to  estimate  in  dollars  and  cents  the  value  of  his  father’s, 
blessing  or  his  mother’s  love,  so  no  one  dreamt  of  estimating  the 
value  of  the  union  of  these  states — a  union  cemented  by  a  common 
lineage,  a  common  language,  a  common  religion,  and  a  common 
history.  We  were  born  in  the  same  family,  rocked  in  the  same 
cradle,  struggled  through  the  same  difficulties.  Wcwere  united  in 
the  council-chamber  and  on  the  battle-field.  The  blood  of  Northern 
and  of  Southern  patriots  flowed  in  a  common  stream,  and  their 

1 


2 


THE  STATE  OF  THE  COUNTRY. 


ashes  lie  mingled  in  the  same  graves.  These  are  not  sentimental¬ 
ities  which  men  of  sense  can  afford  to  despise.  They  are  bonds  of 
union  which  it  argues  moral  degradation  to  disregard.  Moreover, 
there  is  no  denomination  of  Christians  whose  members  are  not 
found  in  every  part  of  our  common  country.  Almost  every  family 
at  the  South  has  kindred  living  at  the  North,  and  the  families  at 
the  North  have  kindred  at  the  South.  The  union  of  these  states  is 
a  real  union.  It  is  not  a  mere  association,  such  as  binds  together 
nations  of  different  races,  languages,  and  political  institutions,  as  in 
the  Austrian  empire.  Our  outward  union  is  the  expression  of  in¬ 
ward  unity.  To  this  we  owe  our  dignity  and  power  among  the 
nations  of  the  earth.  Had  we  been  as  the  dissociated  communities 
of  Italy,  wre  had  been  insignificant.  It  is  because  we  are  one  that 
we  are  great,  prosperous,  and  powerful. 

Besides  the  bonds  of  union  above  adverted  to,  this  country  is 
geographically  one.  The  bounds  of  nations  are  not  arbitrarily 
.assigned  ;  they  are,  in  general,  determined  by  fixed  laws.  A  people 
indeed,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Homans,  may  conquer  other  nations, 
and  gather  them  all  under  one  despotic  head  in  despite  of  their 
essential  diversities.  But  this  is  a  temporary  contravention  of  the 
laws  of  nature.  It  is  the  configuration  of  the  earth’s  surface  which 
-determines  the  boundaries  of  nations.  Greece  was  geographically 
one.  So  was  Egypt ;  so  is  Italy,  which  is  now  at  last  straggling  to 
attain  its  normal  state.  Spain,  France,  Great  Britain,  Germany, 
are  all  one,  not  by  the  will  of  man,  but  by  physical  laws,  which 
.men  can  contravene  only  to  their  own  detriment  or  destruction. 
The  immutable  law  of  God,  as  expressed  in  nature,  makes  the  ter¬ 
ritory  assigned  to  the  Anglo-Saxon  race  on  this  continent  one 
■nation.  The  same  mountain  ranges  run  through  the  whole  land. 
The  great  valley,  beginning  in  Carolina  and  Tennessee,  reaches  to 
the  borders  of  Canada.  The  broad  Atlantic  slope  is  one  contin¬ 
uous  plain.  The  immense  basin  of  the  Mississippi  includes,  as  the 
bosom  of  a  common  mother,  the  states  from  the  Lakes  to  the  Gulf 
.of  Mexico.  The  Ohio,  the  Missouri,  and  the  Mississippi,  are  arte¬ 
ries  which  carry  the  same  living  flood  through  the  vast  region 
.through  which  they  flow.  The  country  is  thus  physically  one,  and 
therefore  its  organic  life  is  one.  We  can  not  divide  a  tree  without 
•destroying  its  life.  We  can  not  divide  a  river  without  producing 
:  an  inundation.  The  union  of  this  country,  therefore,  is  determined 
iby  the  homogeneity  of  its  people,  by  its  history,  and  by  its  physi¬ 
cal  character.  It  can  not  be  permanently  dissevered.  The  mis¬ 
taken  counsels  or  passions  of  men  may  cause  a  temporary  separa- 


THE  STATE  OF  THE  COUNTRY. 


3 


tion,  but  the  laws  of  nature  will  ultimately  assert  their  supremacy, 
and  avenge,  by  terrible  disasters,  their  temporary  violation.  Be¬ 
sides,  there  is  the  moral  bond.  We  are  bound  together  by  cove¬ 
nants  and  oaths.  It  requires  something  more  than  annoyances,  or 
collisions  of  opinion  or  interests,  to  free  men  in  the  sight  of  God  or 
man  from  the  obligation  of  an  oath.  These  states  are  pledged  to  a 
“perpetual  union.”  All  federal  and  state  officers  are  bound  by 
oath  to  maintain  that  union,  and  the  constitution  on  which  it  is 
founded.  It  is  admitted  that  there  may  be  circumstances  which 
will  justify  a  nation  in  violating  a  solemn  treaty,  or  a  people  in 
casting  off  the  obligation  of  an  oatli  of  allegiance ;  but  no  man, 
who  has  the  fear  of  God  before  his  eyes,  will  advocate  such  viola¬ 
tion  except  in  extreme  cases. 

Although  these  things  are  so,  and  although  the  conviction  of 
their  truth  until  recently  rested  as  an  axiom  in  the  public  mind,  we 
are  nevertheless  at  this  moment  on  the  brink  of  disunion.  We  are; 
not  of  the  number  of  those  who  think  there  is  no  danger  in  the4 
present  state  of  the  country.  We  fully  believe  that  several  of  the' 
Southern  states  are  bent  on  secession,  and  there  is  great  reason  to> 
fear  that  should  a  Southern  confederacy  be  once  formed,  all  the 
fifteen  slaveholding  states  will  ultimately  combine.  What  has 
produced  this  great  and  lamentable  change  in  the  public  mind  ? 
Why  is  disunion,  so  recently  regarded  as  criminal  and  impossible, 
now  looked  upon  as  almost  inevitable  ?  What  are  the  causes 
which  have  produced  the  present  state  of  feeling  ?  This  question 
may  be  viewed  in  different  aspects.  It  may  be  understood  to  mean, 
What  are  the  political  events  of  which  the  existing  condition  of  the 
country  is  the  natural  sequence  ?  or,  it  may  mean,  What  are  the 
grounds  on  which  the  cotton  states  desire  a  separation  from  the 
Union  ?  These  are  different  questions  and  must  receive  different 
answers.  As  to  the  former,  it  is  a  political  question,  and  will  be 
answered  according  to  the  political  views  of  those  by  whom  the 
answer  is  given.  One  party  says,  that  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri 
Compromise,  the  effort  to  force  the  Lecompton  constitution  upon 
the  people  of  Kansas,  the  refusal  of  Southern  politicians  to  unite 
in  the  nomination  of  a  Northern  democrat  for  the  presidency,  are 
the  causal  antecedents  of  the  present  state  of  things.  It  matters 
not,  they  say,  whether  the  Missouri  Compromise  Act  was  constitu¬ 
tionally  obligatory  as  a  law,  it  was  binding  as  a  compact.  It  had 
been  voluntarily  formed ;  it  had  been  regarded  as  sacred  for  thirty 
years ;  to  set  it  aside  for  the  sake  of  a  sectional  advantage  was  re¬ 
garded  as  a  violation  of  honor  and  good  faith.  Much  of  the  Ter- 


4 


THE  STATE  OF  THE  COUNTRY. 


ritory  of  Kansas  lies  to  the  north  of  latitude  36°  30 '.  If  the  com¬ 
promise  was  acted  upon,  Kansas  must  be  a  free  state.  To  secure  her 
admission  as  a  slave  state  was  regarded  as  a  matter  of  great  impor¬ 
tance,  not  only  to  the  South  generally,  but  especially  to  Missouri. 
Therefore  that  compromise  was  abolished.  Then  whether  Kansas 
should  be  a  free  or  slave  state  depended  on  the  character  of  the 
settlers.  This  led  to  a  rush  from  both  sections  of  the  country  to 
preoccupy  the  ground.  This  gave* rise  to  fierce  collisions.  The 
settlers  from  the  North  proved  the  more  numerous.  To  overcome 
this  fact  and  to  give  the  minority  the  ascendency,  fraud  and  force 
were  resorted  to.  Election  returns  were  falsified,  legislatures  and 
conventions  were  packed  with  men  illegally  elected  ;  attempts  were 
made  to  force  the  pro-slavery  constitution  thus  framed  upon  the 
people  without  their  consent.  These  facts  rested  not  on  rumor,  nor 
upon  newspaper  reports,  but  upon  judicial  investigation  and  the 
testimony  of  democratic  governors  and  federal  officers.  It  was  the 
conviction  of  the  truth  of  these  facts  which  called  into  existence 
the  Republican  party.  That  party  is  not  an  anti-slavery,  much 
less  an  abolition  party.  It  may  suit  politicians  on  either  side  so  to 
represent  it,  but  the  mass  of  the  people  care  little  for  politicians  or 
for  what  they  say.  They  make  little  account  of  platforms,  which 
are  not  read  by  one  in  a  thousand.  The  people  act  from  their  own 
views.  The  facts  above  mentioned  offended  the  conscience  of  the 
people  of  the  North,  and  the  condemnation  of  those  acts  was  the 
whole  significancy  of  their  vote,  first  for  Fremont,  and  then  for 
Lincoln.  In  this  condemnation  they  have  the  concurrence  of  prob¬ 
ably  nine  tenths  of  all  the  intelligent  people  in  the  country  ;  for  it 
is  one  of  the  infelicities  of  the  necessary  existence  of  parties  in  a 
free  government,  that  men  are  often  obliged  to  sanction  acts  which 
they  personally  condemn.  Notwithstanding,  however,  the  general 
-disapprobation  of  the  measures  referred  to,  such  is  the  disposition 
at  the  North  to  concede  every  thing  to  the  South  for  the  sake  of 
peace  and  party  predominance,  there  is  little  doubt  that  the  election 
of  Mr.  Lincoln  would  have  been  defeated  had  it  not  been  for  the 
split  in  the  Democratic  party  at  Charleston.  The  nomination  of  a 
sectional  candidate  at  the  South  and  another  at  the  North  necessi¬ 
tated  the  defeat  of  the  other  candidates  who  had  some  claim  to 
stand  on  a  national  basis.  Such  is  the  view  of  the  political  causes 
of  the  present  alarming  state  of  the  country,  taken  by  the  great 
body  of  the  people  of  the  North.  They  refer  it  to  the  action  of  the 
dominant  party  during  the  last  six  years.  Whether  this  is  a  correct 
view  of  the  case  is  not  the  question.  It  is  enough  that  this  is  the 


THE  STATE  OF  THE  COUNTRY. 


5 


view  which  has  determined,  and  which  interprets  the  action  of  the 
North.  It  is  important  that  this  should  be  understood,  in  order 
that  the  state  of  the  public  mind  should  not  be  misapprehended  and 
misinterpreted. 

The  special  supporters  of  the  present  administration,  or  the 
leaders  of  the  dominant  party,  of  course  seek  for  other  political 
causes  of  the  present  agitation  of  the  country.  They  deny  that 
the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise,  or  the  action  of  the  govern¬ 
ment  in  the  Kansas  question,  or  even  the  division  of  the  Charleston 
convention,  is  the  cause  of  the  difficulty.  They  throw  the  respon¬ 
sibility  on  the  opposers  of  those  measures.  They  say  that  if  the 
policy  of  the  administration  had  been  acquiesced  in,  as  a  true 
regard  for  the  interest  of  the  country  required,  there  would  have 
been  no  interruption  of  the  public  peace. 

It  is  not,  however,  the  political  aspect  of  the  case  that  we  propose 
to  examine.  It  is  more  important  to  turn  our  attention  to  the 
question,  What  are  the  grounds  on  which  the  cotton-growing 
states  advocate  the  dissolution  of  the  Union?*  or,  What  are  the 
reasons  why  they  desire  to  secede?  These  reasons  are  two,  very 
different  in  their  nature  and  in  their  effects.  The  one  is  the  con¬ 
viction  that  they  would  be  more  prosperous  in  a  separate,  inde¬ 
pendent  confederacy.  Their  pecuniary  interests,  they  think,  would 
thereby  be  greatly  promoted.  The  other  reason  is,  the  alleged  ag¬ 
gressions  of  the  North,  which,  it  is  said,  not  only  justify  secession, 
but  render  that  measure  necessary  for  the  preservation  of  the  rights 
and  safety  of  the  South.  The  former  reason  probably  determines 
the  action  of  the  leaders  in  this  movement,  the  latter  sways  the 
popular  mind,  and  by  the  exasperation  of  feeling  which  it  excites 
under  the  sense  of  injustice  and  apprehension  of  danger,  furnishes 
the  motive  power. 

That  the  leaders  of  the  secession  movement  are  influenced  by 
the  conviction  that  secession  would  promote  the  prosperity  of  the 
cotton  states,  has  been  openly  and  frequently  avowed.  It  is  said 
they  would  not  only  be  relieved  from  great  national  burdens  and 
from  commercial  restrictions,  but  their  resources  would  in  every 
way  be. increased.  They  cast  their  eyes  on  Cuba.  They  see  that 
that  noble  island  is  rendered  secure  by  the  jealousies  of  other 


*  We  confine  the  question  to  the  cotton-growing  states,  as  in  them  only  lias  any 
strong  secession  movement  been  developed.  The  vast  majority  of  the  people  in  the 
other  slave  states  are  opposed  to  disunion.  They  would  prevent  it  if  they  could.  It 
is  only  in  the  event  of  the  cotton  states  withdrawing  from  the  confederacy,  that  the 
other  states  may  be  constrained  to  join  them. 


6 


THE  STATE  OF  THE  COUNTRY. 


nations.  France  will  not  permit  its  acquisition  by  Great  Britain, 
and  Great  Britain  will  not  consent  to  its  passing  under  the  dominion 
of  France.  Neither  France  nor  England  would  be  satisfied  to  see 
it  in  the  hands  of  the  United  States.  Thus  secure  from  foreign 
aggression,  its  productiveness  and  its  geographical  position  would 
render  it,  in  a  pecuniary  point  of  view,  one  of  the  most  prosperous 
portions  of  the  globe,  were  it  not  for  the  enormous  drain  upon  its 
resources  made  by  the  demands  of  Spain.  As  it  is,  it  has  few 
rivals  in  pecuniary  prosperity.  What  is  to  hinder  the  cotton 
states,  it  is  asked,  from  occupying  a  similar  position  ?  Cotton  is 
held  to  be  an  absolute  necessity  to  England,  France,  and  the 
Northern  states  of  this  Union.  All  would  be  forced,  by  a  regard 
to  their  own  interests,  to  maintain  the  independence  of  the  Southern 
confederacy.  With  unlimited  free  trade,  the  ships  of  other  nations 
would  crowd  the  Southern  ports,  bringing  every  article  of  luxury 
or  use  the  South  requires,  and  taking  cotton  in  return.  The  wealth 
which  now  pours  into  the  North  would  thus  be  transferred  to  the 
South.  By  opening  the  slave-trade,  labor  could  be  obtained  at  a 
far  cheaper  rate  than  at  present,  and  the  production  of  cotton  in¬ 
creased  to  meet  the  utmost  demand.  The  Southern  tier  of  states 
would  thus  become  rich  and  prosperous  beyond  all  competition. 
Such  is  the  picture  which  the  advocates  of  disunion  have  drawn. 
The  first  remark  which  such  representations  suggest  is,  that  all 
these  advantages  are  for  a  class,  and  that  a  very  small  class  of  the 
inhabitants  of  those  states.  The  benefits  of  disunion  are  to  accrue 
to  the  holders  of  slaves.  But  they  constitute  a  small  minority  of 
the  white  population  of  those  states.  Is  it  fair  or  reasonable  that 
a  revolution  should  be  effected  for  the  benefit  of  so  small*  a  mi- 
noritv  of  the  people  ?  Has  not  class-legislation  been  ever  regarded 
as  one  of  the  greatest  evils  of  the  nations  of  Europe  ?  Are  not 
thousands  of  sufferers  from  such  legislation  constantly  flocking  to 
this  country  as  to  an  asylum  ?  And  are  we  to  introduce  among 
ourselves  this  most  odious  and  unjust  feature  of  foreign  policy  ? 
But  admitting  that  disunion  would  not  only  be  advantageous  to 
slaveholders,  but  incidentally  to  the  non-slaveholding  majority,  is 
this  a  reason  for  disunion  which  can  present  itself  at  the  bar  of 
conscience?  Can  a  contract  be  rightfully  broken  for  money? 
The  people  of  Pennsylvania,  and  of  many  other  Northern  states, 
are  fully  convinced  that  a  high  protecting  tariff  would  be  greatly 
to  their  advantage  ;  that  under  such  protection,  with  their  immense 

mineral  resources,  thev  would  soon  become  to  this  continent  what 

/  %/ 

England  has  long  been  to  Europe  and  the  world.  It  has,  how- 


THE  STATE  OF  THE  COUNTRY. 


7 


ever,  never  been  suggested  that  this  conviction  would  afford  any 
justifiable  ground  for  a  dissolution  of  the  Union.  The  prosperity 
of  the  New-England  states  was  utterly  prostrated  by  the  policy  of 
the  government  in  the  times  of  the  non-intercourse  and  embargo 
laws.  In  those  times,  secession,  as  a  means  of  redress,  was  de¬ 
nounced  as  high  treason.  IIow  then  can  any  Southern  state  justify 
a  disruption  of  the  Union  which  was  declared  to  be  perpetual,  on 
the  ground  that  it  would  be  profitable  ? 

This  bright  vision,  however,  of  the  prosperity  which  is  to  follow 
disunion,  is  a  work  of  the  imagination.  All  the  conditions  of  the 
problem  are  not,  and  perhaps  can  not  be,  taken  into  view.  The 
cotton-growing  states  are  not  an  insular  territory  like  Cuba.  They 
are  an  integral  part  of  a  great  continent.  They  are  a  member  of 
an  organized  body.  They  can  not  have  a  separate  life  of  their  own. 
A  tourniquet  applied  to  a  limb  may  cause  its  distention  for  a  time, 
but  at  the  certain  expense  of  its  vitality.  The  carrying  out  of  this 
Southern  programme  would  place  the  cotton  states  in  direct  hos 
tility  with  the  other  slave  states.  It  would  be  their  ruin,  at  least 
for  years  to  come.  The  value  of  their  property  in  slaves  must  be 
depreciated  many  per  cent.  This  would  lead  to  their  being 
crowded  into  those  states  where  their  labor  could  be  profitably 
employed.  This  would  soon  be  followed  by  over-production  ;  the 
price  of  cotton,  the  sole  foundation  of  all  these  brilliant  hopes, 
must  decline,  and  the  besom  of  desolation  would  sweep  over  the 
land.  The  hopes  of  security  and  protection  from  the  conflicting 
jealousies  of  European  powers  ;  the  anticipation  that  France  and 
England,  having  abolished  slavery  in  their  own  dominions,  would 
unite  to  uphold  it  in  the  cotton-growing  states  of  this  confederacy, 
and  rejoice  in  the  humiliation  and  destruction  of  the  North,  are  all 
built  on  the  assumption  that  Satan  governs  the  world.  The  na¬ 
tural  anticipation  is,  that  as  those  nations  have  submitted  to  the 
enormous  sacrifice  of  emancipating  their  own  slaves,  they  would 
use  all  their  influence  to  abolish  slavery  elsewhere.  It  has  long 
been  the  conviction  of  our  most  enlightened  men,  that  it  is  nothing 
but  the  protection  which  the  flag  of  the  Union  spreads  over  slavery 
in  this  country,  that  prevents  England  arraying  all  her  power  for 
its  destruction.  Separated  from  the  North,  a  Southern  confederacy 
of  the  cotton-growing  states  would  be  at  the  mercy  of  the  anti¬ 
slavery  feeling  of  the  world.  The  dissolution  of  the  Union,  there¬ 
fore,  in  all  human  probability,  would  be  the  death-blow  to  slavery. 
Hence  men  who  think  only  of  that  subject,  have  been  the  earliest 
and  warmest  advocates  of  the  dismemberment  of  the  confederacy. 


8 


THE  STATE  OF  THE  COUNTRY. 


We  have  no  heart  to  dwell  on  this  point.  No  one  can  predict  the 
evils  of  disunion.  The  chimera  of  abounding  wealth  can  prevent 
none  but  the  infatuated  from  perceiving  the  overwhelming  counter¬ 
balancing  considerations.  An  entire  loss  of  dignity  and  power  by 
the  cotton  states  consequent  on  secession  from  the  Union,  might 
suffice  of  itself  to  deter  from  such  an  experiment.  Without  a 
navy,  without  an  army,  without  resources  for  either,  such  a  con¬ 
federacy  could  only  exist  by  sufferance.  It  would  be  subject  to  all 
kinds  of  insults,  annoyances,  and  injuries,  for  which  impotent 
wrath  would  be  the  only  redress.  The  disproportion  between  the 
two  portions  of  the  Union  thus  divided  would  constantly  increase. 
The  South  would  grow  in  a  slave  population,  and  the  North  in  a 
population  of  freemen.  By  the  time  the  Southern  confederacy 
numbers  four  millions  of  white  inhabitants,  the  North  would  have 
forty  millions.  What  can  be  the  consequence  of  such  dispropor¬ 
tion  between  conterminous  political  communities,  when  there  is  no¬ 
thing  to  restrain  injury  and  annoyance  ?  This  is  a  dismal  prospect, 
from  which  we  gladly  turn  our  eyes.  The  evils  to  the  cotton 
states  themselves,  from  disunion,  are  so  probable  and  so  great,  that 
the  argument  from  interest  is  not  that  on  which  reliance  is  placed. 
It  is  a  sense  of  injustice,  of,  injury,  of  danger,  and  consequent  feel¬ 
ing  of  animosity,  that  is  appealed  to  by  political  leaders  in  order 
to  make  the  people  willing  to  secede. 

Let  us  calmly,  and  in  the  fear  of  God,  examine  this  other  view 
of  the  case.  What  are  the  grievances  of  the  South  ?  That  our 
Southern  friends  do  feel  aggrieved,  that  they  believe  that  great 
injustice  has  been  done  them,  that  their  rights  have  been  encroached 
upon  and  their  safety  endangered,  there  can  be  no  doubt.  Nothing 
else  can  account  for  the  state  of  feeling  which  now  prevails  at  the 
South.  It  must  also  be  acknowledged  that  the  South  has  some 
just  grounds  of  complaint,  and  that  the  existing  animosity  towards 
the  North  is  neither  unnatural  nor  unaccountable.  At  the  same 
time  it  is  perfectly  apparent  to  every  dispassionate  mind,  that  these 
grievances  are  greatly  exaggerated,  and  that  this  animosity  arises 
in  a  large  measure  from  misapprehension. 

The  first  great  grievance  of  the  South  is  the  spirit,  language,  and 
conduct  of  the  abolitionists  of  the  North.  It  is  a  grievance  to  be 
hated  and  denounced,  te  be  held  up  as  execrably  wicked.  It  is  a 
grievance  to  have  slaveholding  represented  as  the  greatest  of 
crimes ;  to  have  immediate  emancipation  insisted  upon  as  an  impe¬ 
rative  duty.  The  grievance  consists  partly  in  the  injustice  of  these 
judgments.  Those  thus  condemned  and  denounced  feel  that  they 


THE  STATE  OF  THE  COUNTRY. 


9 


are  injured.  Resentment  is  the  unavoidable  consequence  of  un- 
merited  condemnation.  Mere  moral  disapprobation  of  the  system 
of  slavery  would  be  no  just  ground  of  complaint.  One  of  the 
ablest  and  most  philosophical  speeches  delivered  of  late  years  on 
the  floor  of  Congress,  was  pronounced  by  a  representative  from  Ala¬ 
bama,  in  which  he  took  the  ground  that  the  mere  disapprobation 
of  slavery  was  a  sufficient  reason  why  the  South  could  not  remain 
united  with  the  North.  But  this  is  evidently  untenable.  A  man 
may  have  a  moral  disapprobation  of  the  system  of  serfdom  in  Rus¬ 
sia,  of  the  church  establishment  in  England,  or  of  the  law  of  pri¬ 
mogeniture,  or  of  an  order  of  nobility,  and  yet  live  as  a  peaceful 
citizen  of  those  countries.  The  disapprobation  of  slavery,  always 
entertained  and  avowed  by  the  Quakers,  has  never  been  regarded 
as  a  grievance  by  the  South.  It  is  only  when  such  disapprobation 
is  not  only  unjust,  but  when  it  is  the  source  of  hatred  and  abuse, 
that  it  rouses  animositv.  In  the  case  before  us  the  elements  of  in- 

e/ 

justice  and  violence  are  combined.  Slaveholding  is  not  a  crime. 
A  man  by  being  the  owner  of  slaves  does  not  justly  forfeit  respect 
and  confidence.  He  may  be  one  of  the  best  of  men.  It  is,  therefore, 
an  act  of  injustice  to  condemn  him  as  a  criminal.  And  when  this 
condemnation  is  connected  with  violent  defamation,  it  becomes  an 
intolerable  grievance ;  that  is,  such  a  grievance  as  can  not  ordina¬ 
rily  be  submitted  to  without  awakening  the  strongest  resentment. 
It  must  be  admitted  that  this  is  a  grievance  under  which  the  South 
has  labored  and  is  still  laboring.  The  great  mistake,  however,  of 
our  Southern  brethren,  is  that  they  charge  this  offence  on  the  peo¬ 
ple  of  the  North;  whereas,  the  truth  is,  there  is  not  one  in  a  hun¬ 
dred  of  the  people  of  the  North  wdio  entertains  these  opinions  and 
joins  in  these  denunciations.  We  appeal  in  support  of  this  state¬ 
ment  to  every  accessible  index  of  public  opinion.  Of  the  hundreds 
of  religious  newspapers  published  at  the  North,  the  number  is  very 
small  that  breathe  the  spirit  of  abolitionism.  The  proportion  of  the 
secular  press  controlled  by  that  spirit  is  not  greater.  We  do  not 
know  of  one  clergyman  among  the  Roman  Catholics,  or  the  Episco¬ 
palians,  or  the  Dutch  Reformed,  belonging  to  the  class  of  abolition¬ 
ists.  Of  the  three  thousand  old-school  Presbyterian  clergymen  in 
the  country,  we  do  not  believe  there  are  twelve  who  deserve  to  be 
so  designated.  Of  the  Northern  Baptists  we  have  no  knowledge  of 
the  prevalence  of  abolitionism  to  any  great  extent  in  their  ranks. 
Among  the  Methodists  there  is,  perhaps,  more  of  that  spirit,  but 
counteracted  by  a  strong  conservative  element.  The  clergy  may 
be  taken  as  a  fair  index  of  public  sentiment  on  all  moral  and  relig- 


10 


THE  STATE  OF  THE  COUNTRY. 


ious  subjects,  and  their  influence  in  determining  that  sentiment  can 
not  be  denied.  It  is  a  great  and  lamentable  mistake,  therefore,  on 
the  part  of  the  South,  to  suppose  that  the  great  body  of  the  intelli¬ 
gent  .men  at  the  North  have  any  sympathy  with  those  who  are 
known  among  us  as  abolitionists ;  that  is,  with  those  who  regard 
slaveholding  as  a  crime,  and  immediate  emancipation  a  duty  ;  and 
who  denounce  all  slaveholders  as  unworthy  of  Christian  fellowship. 

But  it  is  said  that  the  election  of  Mr.  Lincoln  to  the  Presidency 
is  unmistakable  evidence  of  the  prevalence  of  abolitionism,  and  of 
settled  hostility  to  the  South.  It  has  been  pronounced  a  declara¬ 
tion  of  war.  The  fact  that  abolitionists  generally  voted  for  Mr. 
Lincoln,  is  appealed  to  as  one  proof,  at  least,  that  the  Republican  is 
an  abolition  party.  But  does  the  fact,  that  all  the  Southern  disun- 
ionists  voted  for  Mr.  Breckinridge  prove  that  all  who  favored  his 
election  are  disunionists,  or  that  he  himself  belongs  to  that  class  ? 
The  reverse  is  notoriously  true.  Why,  then,  should  the  Republi¬ 
cans  be  denounced  as  abolitionists,  because  abolitionists  voted  the 
Republican  ticket?  No  rational  man  can  believe  that  Pennsyl¬ 
vania  gave  Mr.  Lincoln  sixty  thousand  majority  as  the  representa¬ 
tive  of  abolition  principles.  As  before  remarked,  the  Republican 
party  consists  of  those  who  desired  to  enter  their  protest  against  the 
repeal  of  the  Missouri  compromise,  and  the  attempts  to  force  slavery 
upon  Kansas,  joined  by  thousands  who  wish  for  a  protective  tariff, 
and  thousands  more,  who,  from  dislike  of  one  candidate,  and  dis¬ 
trust  of  another,  preferred  to  vote  for  Mr.  Lincoln.  The  only  ques¬ 
tion  of  principle,  so  far  as  relates  to  slavery,  which  distinguishes 
the  mass  of  the  people  at  the  Noith  from  the  extreme  Southern 
party,  is,  whether  slavery  is  a  municipal  or  natural  institution ; 
whether  a  man’s  right  to  hold  a  slave  as  property  rests  on  statute 
law,  or  upon  the  common  law.  If  the  latter,  then  a  man  has  a 
right  to  carry  his  slaves  into  any  state  or  territory  into  which  he 
may  lawfully  carry  his  ox  or  his  horse.  He  may  bring  them  by 
hundreds  and  thousands  into  any  state  in  the  Union,  and  settle 
with  them  there.  If  the  former,  he  can  carry  them  no  where 
beyond  the  legitimate  authority  of  the  law  by  which  slavery  exists. 
Which  of  these  views  is  correct,  this  is  not  the  place  to  discuss. 
All  that  we  wish  to  say  on  the  point  is,  that  this  is  the  sum  of  the 
difference  in  principle  between  the  North  and  the  extreme  South  ; 
and  that,  as  a  historical  fact,  the  doctrine  that  slavery  is  a  municipal 
institution,  that  no  man  has  the  same  right  to  hold  his  slave  in  bon¬ 
dage  in  France  and  England,  that  he  has  there  to  keep  possession 
of  his  books  or  clothes,  was  the  doctrine  of  all  parties  in  this  coun- 


THE  STATE  OF  THE  COUNTRY. 


11 


try  until  within  the  last  twenty  or  thirty  years.  If,  therefore,  hold¬ 
ing  this  opinion  is  a  just  ground  for  separating  from  the  North,  it 
was  a  just  ground  for  refusing  to  submit  to  the  administration  of 
Washington,  Jefferson,  Madison,  Monroe,  and  every  other  Presi¬ 
dent,  unless  our  present  chief  magistrate  be  an  exception.  Hold- 
ing  this  opinion  as  to  the  foundation  of  slavery,  therefore,  does  not 
constitute  the  Republicans  an  abolition  party,  and  does  not  afford  a 
reason  for  disunion  which  can  satisfy  the  judgment  or  conscience 
of  any  reasonable  man. 

'There  is  another  consideration  which  ought  to  satisfy  the  South 
that  the  North  is  not  infected  with  abolitionism.  There  are  three 
different  views  entertained  as  to  the  moral  character  of  slavery. 
The  one  is  that  adopted  by  the  abolitionists,  viz.  that  slaveholding 
is  a  crime  calling  for  the  execration  of  the  world,  and  excommuni¬ 
cation  from  the  church.  The  opposite  extreme  is  that  slavery  is  a 
normal  institution,  good  in  itself,  and  one  which  should  be  perpet¬ 
uated  and  extended,  and,  therefore,  that  the  slaves  should  be  kept 
in  such  a  state  of  ignorance  and  dependence  as  is  necessary  to  ren¬ 
der  the  indefinite  duration  of  the  institution  possible,  safe,  and  use¬ 
ful.  The  third  view  is  that  slavery,  as  a  system  of  domestic  des¬ 
potism,  belongs  to  the  same  category  with  political  despotism.  It 
is  not  morally  wrong  in  itself,  and,  therefore,  under  all  circum¬ 
stances  ;  it  is  not  to  be  denounced  as  a  crime,  nor  are  slaveholders, 
as  such,  to  be  held  up  as  worthy  of  condemnation,  or  excluded  from 
the  fellowship  of  the  Christian  church.  At  the  same  time,  as  slaves 
are  men,  they  should  be  treated  as  such,  as  the  children  of  a  com¬ 
mon  Father,  entitled  by  the  gift  of  God  to  mental  and  moral  cul¬ 
ture,  to  have  the  light  of  heaven  let  in  upon  their  souls,  to  the 
rights  of  property,  and  to  the  prerogatives  of  the  conjugal  and  pa¬ 
rental  relations.  To  deny  them  these  rights  is  as  great  a  sin  as 
though  they  were  freemen.  Most  men,  when  they  condemn  sla¬ 
very,  have  certain  slave  laws  in  their  minds ;  laws  which  forbid 
the  slaves  to  be  instructed,  which  declare  they  can  not  contract  mar¬ 
riage,  or  which  authorize  the  forcible  separation  of  husbands  and 
wives,  parents  and  children.  But  Southern  Christians  condemn 
these  laws  as  heartily  as  we  do.  Indeed,  no  man  can  be  a  Christ- 
tian  who  does  not  condemn  them.  It  is  only  a  few  days  since  we 
heard  a  slaveholding  minister  say  that  his  church  would  as  certainly 
discipline  a  man  for  selling  a  husband  away  from  his  wife,  as  for 
drunkenness.  It  is  a  wicked  misrepresentation  when  men  at  the 
North  hold  up  Southern  Christians  as  approving  of  such  laws,  and 
it  is  an  equally  wicked  misrepresentation  when  men  at  the  South 


12  THE  STATE  OF  THE  COUNTRY. 

denounce  men  at  the  North  as  abolitionists,  because  they  condemn 
those  same  laws.  This  view  of  slavery,  we  verily  believe,  is  held 
by  nine  tenths  of  the  intelligent  Christian  people  of  this  country, 
north  and  south,  east  and  west.  At  the  late  meeting  of  the  Gen¬ 
eral  Assembly  of  the  Presbyterian  church  at  Rochester,  there  were 
present  over  three  hundred  delegates  from  every  state  in  the  Union, 
except  Oregon  and  one  or  two  of  the  New-England  states.  A  more 
harmonious  body  never  assembled  in  this  land.  It  was  a  fair  rep¬ 
resentation  of  the  whole  country.  Yet  on  the  subject  of  slavery 
there  was  no  difference  of  opinion  or  feeling  manifested  from  be¬ 
ginning  to  end.  There  was  not  one  Southern  minister  in  that  body 
who  might  not  have  settled  at  the  North,  nor  one  Northern  minis¬ 
ter  who  might  not  labor  acceptably  at  the  South.  Presbyterians 
do  not  differ  so  much  from  other  Christians,  as  to  invalidate  the  ar¬ 
gument  from  their  unanimity  in  proof  of  the  prevailing  sentiment 
of  the  country.  It  is,  therefore,  a  judgment  unsupported  by  facts 
that  the  people  of  the  North  are  the  abolitionists  in  the  sense  in 
which  that  word  is  constantly  used.  There  is  no  material  differ¬ 
ence  of  opinion  on  the  subject  of  slavery  among  the  intelligent 
Christian  people  of  this  country.  There  are  extremists  North  and 
South,  but  the  mass  of  the  people  are  of  one  mind.  The  state  of 
opinion,  therefore,  at  the  North  on  this  subject,  affords  no  reason¬ 
able  or  justifiable  ground  for  the  disruption  of  the  Union. 

Another  grievance  justly  complained  of,  is  the  interference  of 
Northern  abolitionists  with  the  slaves  of  the  South.  This  is  done 
by  the  attempted  distribution  of  abolition  publications  through  the 
Southern  states,  and  by  emissaries  who  endeavor  to  create  dissatis¬ 
faction  among  the  slaves.  This  is  not  only  offensive,  but  in  the 
highest  degree  dangerous.  It  puts  in  peril  the  lives  of  men,  wo¬ 
men  and  children — of  wives  and  daughters.  This  is  beyond  meas¬ 
ure  exasperating.  The  slaveholders  feel  as  men  living  over  a  pow¬ 
der-magazine  into  "which  people  outside  insist  upon  throwing  burn¬ 
ing  coals.  We  admit  that  such  tampering  with  the  slaves  is  a  great 
crime,  and  that  it  is  a  grievance  which  would  justify  almost  any 
available  means  of  redress.  We  doubt  not  that  it  is  to  the  exas¬ 
peration  arising  from  this  cause  that  the  animosity  and  excitement 
now  pervading  the  Southern  mind  are  principally  due.  W e  admit 
the  fact ;  we  admit  that  it  is  a  crime  and  an  offence  ;  "we  admit  that 
it  calls  for  redress.  But  is  disunion  the  rightful  or  effectual  rem¬ 
edy  ?  Is  it  right  to  break  with  the  whole  North  because  of  the 
conduct  of  a  small  band  of  fanatics  oven  which  the  people  have  no 
control,  and  for  which  they  are  not  responsible  ?  Of  the  eighteen 


THE  STATE  OF  THE  COUNTRY. 


13 


millions  of  Northern  white  men,  there  is  probably  not  one  thousand 
who  have  any  agency  in  these  attempts  to  excite  the  Southern  slaves, 
or  who  approve  of  it.  Would  it  be  fair  for  the  North  to  hold  the 
South  responsible  for  the  deeds  of  violence  reported  in  almost  ev¬ 
ery  paper,  of  which  innocent  Northern  citizens  in  Southern  states 
are  the  victims?  It  is  unjust,  therefore,  to  visit  on  the  North  the 
sins  of  a  small  class  of  men  among  them,  when  those  offences  are 
heartily  condemned,  and  when  they  would  be  prevented,  were  pre¬ 
vention  possible. 

This,  however,  is  not  the  only  injustice  in  the  case.  It  is  not 
only  unjust  to  hold  the  North  responsible  for  the  dissatisfaction  ex¬ 
cited  among  the  slaves  at  the  South,  but  it  is  a  great  injustice  to 
attribute  that  dissatisfaction  to  the  efforts  of  Northern  abolitionists 
as  its  sole  or  principal  cause.  For  one  communication  that  reaches 
the  minds  of  the  slaves  tending  to  promote  disturbance,  coming 
from  Northern  fanatics,  a  hundred,  probably  a  thousand,  come  from 
Southern  men  and  from  their  political  allies  at  the  North.  The 
circulation  of  abolition  publications  is  prohibited  by  law,  and  sed¬ 
ulously  guarded  against ;  abolition  emissaries,  if  such  there  be,  act 
at  the  imminent  peril  of  their  lives.  So  far  as  the  minds  of  the 
slaves  are  concerned,  little  can  possibly  be  effected  by  those  agen¬ 
cies.  Whereas  Southern  papers,  and  those  of  the  same  political 
party  from  the  North,  circulate  freely  through  the  South.  Those 
papers  teem  with  extracts  from  the  extreme  anti-slavery  publica¬ 
tions.  They  labor  to  convince  those  who  read  them,  that  the  North 
with  its  eighteen  millions  of  people  is  of  one  mind,  that  slavehold¬ 
ing  is  a  great  crime.  They  constantly  endeavor  to  prove  that  the 
Republican  party  is  pledged  to  abolish  slavery,  to  interfere  with  the 
peculiar  institutions  of  the  South.  Who  read  those  papers  ?  The 
colored  people  read  them.  Their  contents  spread  from  mouth  to 
mouth — exaggerated  and  distorted.  You  might  as  well  fire  can¬ 
non  from  one  end  of  the  country  to  the  other,  and  complain  of  the 
slaves  hearing  them,  as  to  allow  such  papers  to  circulate  and  expect 
their  contents  to  remain  unknown.  We  verily  believe  that  it  would 
be  less  dangerous  to  the  South  to  allow  unrestricted  circulation  to 
avowedly  abolition  papers,  than  to  some  party  journals  who  labor 
to  misrepresent  the  sentiments  of  the  mass  of  Northern  men.  If 
disunion  is  to  come,  if  the  South  is  to  experience  the  horrors  of 
servile  insurrections,  it  will  be  referable  more  to  the  inflammatory 
and  defamatory  character  of  such  publications,  than  to  any  other 
proximate  cause.  Besides  the  evil  done  by  such  publications, 
exciting  public  speeches  are  made  in  almost  every  town  and  vil- 


14 


THE  STATE  OF  THE  COUNTRY. 


lage.  In  these  speeches  Northern  men  are  denounced  as  enemies. 
They  are  spoken  of  with  hatred  and  contempt.  These  orators  la¬ 
bor  to  convince  the  people  that  property  in  slaves  is  in  danger ; 
that  the  North  is  sending  emissaries  through  the  land  to  promote 
emancipation ;  that  the  success  of  the  Republicans  would  be  the 
triumph  of  abolitionism;  and,  if  not  resisted,  the  death-blow  to 
slavery.  Who  hear  those  speeches?  The  slaves  hear  them  and 
believe  them,  though  nobody  else  may.  Southern  planters  also  do 
not  hesitate  to  discuss  all  these  questions  around  their  dinner- tables, 
while  their  slaves  are  standing  at  their  elbows.  We  have  heard 
and  seen  this  with  our  own  ears  and  eyes.  Southern  men  say  they 
are  living  in  a  powder-magazine,  and  resent  the  show  of  combus¬ 
tibles  a  thousand  miles  off,  and  yet  daily  disport  themselves  with 
fireworks.  It  is  a  miracle  of  mercy  that  an  explosion  has  not  long 
since  occurred.  While,  therefore,  we  admit  that  the  attempts  of 
Northern  fanatics  to  produce  dissatisfaction  in  the  slaves,  is  a  crime, 
yet  we  deny  that  this  offence  can  be  justly  chargeable  on  the  peo¬ 
ple  of  the  North,  the  vast  majority  of  whom  condemn  it,  and  would 
gladly  prevent  it  if  they  had  the  power ;  and  we  maintain  that  so 
far  as  dissatisfaction  or  disposition  to  servile  insurrection  exists,  it  is 
attributable  far  more  to  Southern  papers,  speeches  and  table-talk, 
and  to  Northern  anti-Republican  papers  having  free  circulation  at 
the  South,  than  to  all  the  efforts  of  fanatical  abolitionists. 

A  third  prominent  grievance  of  which  the  South  complains,  is 
that  the  provision  of  the  Constitution  requiring  the  restoration  of 
fugitive  slaves,  has  been,  and  is,  openly  disregarded  and  set  at 
nought.  The  Constitution  is  a  compact.  If,  say  our  Southern 
*  brethren,  that  compact  is  violated  by  one  party,  it  ceases  to  be 
binding  on  the  other.  On  this  ground  they  assert  that  they  are  at 
perfect  liberty  to  secede  from  the  Union.  This  is  the  argument 
which  is  presented  in  every  possible  form,  in  newspaper  editorials, 
in  legislative  debates,  in  gubernatorial  messages.  It  is  rung 
through  the  South,  and  echoes  through  the  North.  Yet  a  mo¬ 
ment’s  consideration  will  show  that  the  complaint  is  utterty  un¬ 
founded.  It  is  admitted  that  Southern  masters  have  a  constitutional 
right  to  the  restoration  of  their  fugitive  slaves.  On  whom  does  the 
obligation  to  restore  such  slaves  rest?  Upon  the  Federal  Govern¬ 
ment,  or  upon  the  state  authorities?  Upon  the  Federal  Govern¬ 
ment,  according  to  the  solemn  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court  of 
the  United  States,  our  highest  judicial  authority.  Assuming  that 
the  obligation  rested  upon  the  states,  Pennsylvania  passed  certain 
laws  to  regulate  the  manner  in  which  the  duty  should  be  performed. 


THE  STATE  OF  THE  COUNTRY. 


15 


The  Supreme  Court  pronounced  those  laws  unconstitutional,  on  the 
ground  that  it  belonged  to  the  Federal  Government  to  carry  into 
effect  that  provision  of  the  Constitution.  Has  the  General  Govern¬ 
ment  refused  to  perform  that  duty  ?  It  is  the  party  on  whom  the 
obligation  rests.  Has  it  failed  to  discharge  that  obligation  ?  Hot 
at  all.  Stringent  laws  for  carrying  into  effect  that  part  of  the  con¬ 
stitutional  compact  have  been  passed  by  both  houses  of  Congress, 
and  approved  by  the  President.  The  whole  judicial  and  executive 
power  of  the  Government  is  pledged  to  their  execution.  In  not 
one  instance  have  the  judicial  or  executive  officers  charged  vrith 
this  duty  failed  to  perform  it.  So  far  from  it,  the  judicial  officers 
have  notoriously  erred  on  the  other  side.  They  have  sent  free  men 
to  the  South  as  slaves,  who  have  been  returned  on  their  hands. 
They  have  shocked  public  justice  in  their  zeal  to  carryout  the  law. 
The  United  States  troops  have  been  called  out  to  secure  its  execu¬ 
tion.  Slaves  have  been  returned  to  their  masters,  in  some  instan¬ 
ces,  at  an  expense  of  twenty,  thirty,  or  forty  thousand  dollars  to 
the  Government.  Educated  men,  professors  in  our  colleges,  have 
been  condemned  to  imprisonment  for  attempting  to  interfere  with 
the  execution  of  the  fugitive  slave  law.  At  this  moment,  if  any 
Southern  man  can  point  out  a  slave  living  in  Massachusetts  or  Yer- 
mont,  he  will  be  restored,  though  it  should  cost  a  hundred  thousand 
dollars,  or  even  a  civil  war.  The  Federal  Government,  the  party 
bound,  has  never  failed  to  discharge  to  the  utmost  its  constitutional 
obligations  in  this  matter.  It  is  not  true,  therefore,  that  the  na¬ 
tional  compact  has  been  broken.  The  North,  as  represented  in  the 
Federal  Government,  the  only  organ  through  which  it  can  constitu¬ 
tionally  act  in  the  premises,  has  not  only  been  faithful  in  this  mat¬ 
ter,  but  it  has  carried  its  fidelity  to  the  verge  of  servility.  Contrast 
the  zeal  of  the  General  Government  in  carrying  out  the  provision 
of  the  Constitution  in  reference  to  fugitive  slaves,  with  its  conduct 
in  regard  to  the  provision  which  requires  that  the  citizens  of  one  state 
shall  have  in  all  other  states  the  same  privileges  as  the  citizens  of 
those  states  themselves.  This  provision  of  the  Constitution,  so  far 
as  concerns  colored  persons,  is  a  dead  letter  in  some  of  the  South¬ 
ern  states.  It  has  been  formally  nullified  by  law.  A  gentleman 
of  the  highest  social  and  professional  standing  vras  sent  to  Charles¬ 
ton,  peacefully  and  respectfully  to  bring  the  validity  of  that  law 
before  the  United  States  courts.  He  was  not  allowed  to  do  so.  He 
was  ordered  and  forced  to  leave  the  city.  Ho  judicial  officer  of  the 
General  Government  has  been  commissioned  to  carry  out  that  pro¬ 
vision  of  the  Constitution.  United  States  troops  have  not  been  or- 


16 


THE  STATE  OF  THE  COUNTRY. 


derecl  out  to  secure  its  faithful  observance.  It  has  not  been  exe¬ 
cuted,  and  it  can  not  be  executed.  The  attempt  to  enforce  its 
observance  would  inevitably  split  the  Union,  and  therefore  the 
North,  quietly  submit.  It  may  be  said  that  persons  of  African 
descent  are  not  citizens  in  view  of  the  Constitution,  and  therefore 
have  no  right  to  be  recognized  as  such  in  the  Southern  ports.  This 
is  the  point  which  Massachusetts  wished  to  have  judicially  decided, 
and  was  forbidden  to  make  the  attempt.  It  never  has  been  judi¬ 
cially  decided  by  a  court  of  competent  jurisdiction.  Besides,  this 
was  not  the  ground  on  which  the  law  forbidding  free  negroes  to 
enter  the  state  of  South  -  Carolina  whs  enacted.  Whether  citi¬ 
zens  or  not,  they  were  to  be  excluded.  We  do  not  say  there  may 
not  be  an  overruling  necessity  for  that  law.  It  may  be  that 
the  North  would  be  unreasonable  and  unjust  to  insist  on  the  full 
execution  of  the  Constitution  in  this  matter.  Our  only  object  is  to 
show  that  while  a  constitutional  provision  painful  to  the  North  is 
carried  out  by  all  the  resources  of  the  Federal  Government,  a  like 
provision  distasteful  to  the  South  is  allowed  to  remain  a  dead 
letter. 

It  is,  however,  said  that  “  the  personal  liberty  laws  ”  passed  by 
some  of  the  Northern  states  are  a  virtual  nullification  of  the  fugi¬ 
tive  slave  law,  and  therefore  a  breach  of  compact.  If  a  breach  of 
compact,  they  are,  as  it  is  asserted,  a  full  justification  of  the  disrup¬ 
tion  of  the  Union.  We  admit  that  the  obligation  to  restore  fugitive 
slaves  is  a  constitutional  and  moral  obligation,  and  consequently 
that  any  law  designed  to  prevent  such  restoration  is  unconstitu¬ 
tional  and  criminal.  So  far  as  the  laws  in  question  have  that  de¬ 
sign,  they  are  worthy  of  all  condemnation  ;  and  so  far  as  they  are 
the  expression  of  impotent  hostility,  they  are  unbecoming  the  dig¬ 
nity  of  a  sovereign  state.  If  the  people  of  any  state  can  not  con¬ 
scientiously  submit  to  the  Constitution,  there  are  only  two  courses 
open  to  them  :  they  should  either  endeavor,  in  a  peaceable  and  or¬ 
derly  way,  to  have  the  Constitution  altered,  or  they  should  move 
out  of  the  country.  They  have  no  right  to  live  under  a  Constitu¬ 
tion  and  enjoy  its  benefits  and  yet  refuse  to  submit  to  its  stipula¬ 
tions.  This  is  a  matter  as  to  which  the  conscience  of  many  people 
is  at  fault.  They  think  that  if  they  disapprove,  on  conscientious 
grounds,  of  the  restoration  of  fugitive  slaves,  they  are  bound  to 
resist  such  restoration.  This  is  a  great  mistake.  Their  duty,  in 
that  case,  is  to  try  to  have  the  Constitution  altered,  but  until  it  is 
altered,  they  are  bound  to  allow  it  unrestricted  operation,  or  to  re¬ 
nounce  all  allegiance  to  it.  We  regard,  therefore,  all  opposition 


THE  STATE  OF  THE  COUNTRY. 


17 


to  the  restoration  of  fugitive  slaves,  whether  by  legislatures,  or  by 
individuals,  or  by  mobs,  as  morally  a  crime,  deserving  legal  penal¬ 
ties  and  the  condemnation  of  all  good  men.  If,  therefore,  any 
state  has  passed  laws  to  prevent  the  full  and  efficient  operation  of 
that  provision  of  the  Constitution,  we  hold  that  they  are  bound  by 
their  allegiance  to  God  as  well  as  to  the  country  at  once  to  repeal 
them.  Let  them  endeavor  to  free  themselves  from  an  obligation 
which  wounds  their  conscience,  in  some  just  and  honorable  way. 
There  is  a  very  prevalent  mistake  as  to  the  responsibility  of  indi¬ 
viduals  for  the  Constitution  and  laws  under  which  we  live.  We 
are  bound  to  use  all  our  influence  to  make  the  Constitution  and 
laws  what  they  ought  to  be.  But  if,  without  our  agency,  or  in 
despite  of  our  efforts,  constitutional  provisions  are  adopted  or  laws 
enacted,  which  our  conscience  does  not  approve,  it  is  not  our  fault. 
We  are  not  at  liberty  to  resist  them.  Submission  to  their  opera¬ 
tion  implies  no  approbation.  We  are  not  bound  to  cooperate  in 
giving  them  effect.  We  may  quietly  refuse,  and  submit  to  the 
legal  penalty.  It  is  thus  the  Quakers  act  with  regard  to  church- 
rates  in  England,  and  to  the  militia  laws  in  this  country.  They  do 
not  muster  for  military  training  as  the  law  requires,  but  they  pay 
the  prescribed  penalty.  Thousands  of  the  people  of  France  disap¬ 
prove  of  the  act  of  Louis  Napoleon  in  assuming  imperial  power, 
but  it  would  be  a  crime  to  resist  his  authority.  Our  country  may 
enter  on  an  unrighteous  war,  but  that  would  not  justify  any  state 
legislature  or  any  individual  in  resisting  the  national  army.  The 
moral  responsibility  of  such  laws  rests  upon  those  who  pass  them, 
not  on  those  who  have  no  agency  either  in  their  enactment  or  their 
execution. 

We  heartily  join,  therefore,  in  the  condemnation  of  all  resist¬ 
ance  to  the  restoration  of  fugitive  slaves.  All  laws  designed  to 
interfere  with  the  full  and  efficient  operation  of  the  constitutional 
compact  on  this  subject  are  immoral.  But  the  question  now  before 
us  is,  Whether  the  personal  liberty  laws,  as  they  are  called,  free 
Southern  men  from  their  allegiance  to  the  country  and  from  the 
obligation  of  their  oaths  ?  This  is  the  question  which  every  South¬ 
ern  man  has  to  answer  in  the  sight  of  God.  It  is  not  to  be 
answered  under  the  impulse  of  passion,  or  the  dictates  of  interest, 
lie  is  not  freed  from  his  obligation  to  the  Union  because  he  is  alien¬ 
ated  in  feeling  from  the  North,  nor  because  he  thinks  his  interests 
would  be  promoted  by  secession.  The  only  question  is,  whether 
these  personal  liberty  laws  are  such  a  violation  of  the  national 
compact  as  to  destroy  its  binding  force,  and  to  justify  disunion? 

2 


13 


THE  STATE  OF  THE  COUNTRY. 


We  answer,  No,  for  tlie  following  reasons:  1.  Because,  as  already 
said,  the  Federal  Government  is  the  party  bound,  and  therefore  so 
long  as  that  government  is  faithful  to  the  contract  there  is  no  vio¬ 
lation  of  the  compact.  2.  Because  the  liberty  laws,  so  far  as  we 
can  learn,  are  not  ex  professo  a  nullification  of  the  fugitive  slave 
law.  They  are  not  directed  against  the  agents  legally  appointed  to 
execute  that  law.  The  law  emanates  from  the  General  Govern¬ 
ment.  It  is  designed  to  carry  into  execution  a  federal  prerogative 
and  duty.  It  is  confided  to  federal  officers.  A  law  to  forbid  the 
collection  of  duties  at  a  port  of  entry  by  federal  officers  would  be 
an  act  of  nullification.  But  a  law  to  forbid  state  officers  to  make 
the  collection,  or  state  warehouses  to  be  used  for  storing  the  goods, 
would  not  be  nullification.  So  in  like  manner,  a  law  to  forbid  fede¬ 
ral  officers  to  arrest  fugitive  slaves  would  be  nullification.  But  a 
law  forbidding  state  officers  making  the  arrest,  and  prohibiting  the 
use  of  state  prisons  for  their  detention,  is  not  a  nullification  of  the 
law  of  Congress.  The  duty  is  from  its  nature  a  distasteful  one, 
and  any  declaration  that  it  must  be  performed  by  federal  officers 
thereto  appointed,  and  not  by  state  officials,  who  can  not  legaltybe 
required  to  perform  it,  is  not  a  breach  of  contract.  If  the  United 
States  troops  in  Boston  harbor  should  desert,  Massachusetts  is  not 
bound  to  arrest  them,  and  a  law  prohibiting  the  state  officers  from 
being  called  upon  to  perform  that  service,  would  not  be  a  nullifica¬ 
tion  of  the  law  against  desertion.  It  is  a  United  States  law,  and 
must  be  executed  by  United  States  officers.  3.  A  third  argument 
on  this  subject  is,  that  the  liberty  laws  are  designed  professedly  to 
protect  free  negroes.  There  is  danger  of  their  being  unjustly  car¬ 
ried  into  slavery.  It  has  been  done,  and  we  know  that  a  young 
woman  from  Texas,  although  liberated  by  her  owner  and  father, 
was  considered  so  much  in  danger  in  New-  York  that  she  was  sent 
to  Canada  for  protection.  If  a  negro  in  Virginia,  held  as  a  slave, 
claims  to  be  a  free  man,  the  law  gives  him  certain  facilities  for  hav¬ 
ing  the  validity  of  his  claim  judicially  decided.  If  a  negro  living 
in  Massachusetts  is  seized  as  a  slave,  Massachusetts  desires  to  give 
him  the  same  means  of  proving  that  he  is  free.  The  provisions  of 
the  Massachusetts  law  are  said  to  be  identical  with  those  of  the  cor¬ 
responding  Virginia  law.  This  is  not  nullification.  4.  But  sup¬ 
pose  these  laws  to  be  directly  in  conflict  with  the  fugitive  slave  laws  ; 
suppose  a  state  should  expressly  prohibit  the  restoration  of  a  fugi¬ 
tive  slave  arrested  within  her  borders,  would  that  justify  secession  ? 
Would  that  exonerate  any  slaveholding  State  from  its  allegiance 
to  the  Union?  Certainly  not,  because  secession  is  not  the  proper 


THE  STATE  OF  THE  COUNTRY. 


19 


remedy  for  this  injustice.  The  first  step  would  be  to  have  such 
State  law  declared,  by  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States,  to 
be  unconstitutional.  That  would  be  make  it  a  dead  letter.  In  no 
part  of  the  Union  could  it  be  executed  in  the  face  of  such  a  deci¬ 
sion.  But  should  it  be  persisted  in,  the  next  step  would  be  for  the 
United  States  to  enforce  obedience  to  its  own  law.  Any  State  re¬ 
sisting  under  such  circumstances  would  be  in  rebellion,  and  must 
be  reduced  to  submission  to  the  law,  just  as  Washington  suppressed 
the  Whisky  insurrection.  This  is  the  operation  of  our  system.  Nul¬ 
lification  of  the  fugitive  slave  law.  therefore,  even  if  formally  enacted 
in  any  state,  would  be  no  justification  of  secession.  It  is  not  a 
breach  of  contract,  so  long  as  the  Federal  Government,  the  party 
bound,  is  faithful  to  its  duty.  These  liberty  laws,  objectionable  as 
they  may  be,  are  not  the  real  cause  of  the  difficulty.  The  border 
states  which  suffer  from  the  loss  of  slaves,  are  not  in  favor  of  se¬ 
cession.  The  complaint  of  breach  of  contract  comes  from  states 
which  suffer  little  or  nothing  from  this  source.  We  do  not  see,  on 
a  careful  consideration  of  the  matter,  how  anv  conscientious  man 
can  justify  disunion  on  the  ground  that  the  North  has  proved  un¬ 
faithful  to  the  national  compact.  The  great  majority  of  the  peo¬ 
ple  of  the  North  are  in  favor  of  the  faithful  execution  of  the  law, 
and  the  Federal  Government,  their  constitutional  organ,  has  never 
faded  to  discharge  its  duty  in  the  premises. 

Another  ground  of  complaint  is  that  the  South  has  lost  its  equal¬ 
ity  in  the  Union ;  or  that  they  are  denied  equal  rights.  This  com¬ 
plaint  has  the  more  force  on  the  popular  mind  from  its  vagueness, 
and  from  its  appealing  to  a  sense  of  j  ustice.  A  denial  of  equal 
rights  to  any  part  of  the  confederacy  would  be  indeed  a  just 
ground  of  complaint.  This  grievance  is  presented  in  different 
lights  by  our  Southern  brethren.  It  sometimes  means  one  thing 
and  sometimes  another.  It  often  has  special  reference  to  the  ter¬ 
ritories.  These  are  the  common  property  of  the  country.  The 
North,  South,  East,  and  West,  have  an  equal  right  to  their  posses¬ 
sion  and  occupancy.  Hence  it  is  inferred  that  if  immigrants  from 
the  North  are  allowed  to  take  every  species  of  their  property  into 
the  territories,  immigrants  from  the  South  have  the  right  to  take 
every  thing  which  the  laws  of  the  South  declare  to  be  property. 
To  deny  this  is  to  deny  equal  right  in  the  territories.  To  this  it 
is  answered,  1.  That  there  is  no  restriction  peculiar  to  the  slave¬ 
holding  states.  The  people  from  those  states  may  take  into  the 
territories  every  thing  that  the  people  from  the  North  are  allowed 
to  take.  They  are  placed  on  terms  of  perfect  equality  in  this 


20 


THE  STATE  OF  THE  COUNTRY. 


respect.  2.  That  the  restriction  with  regard  to  slaves,  which  bears 
equally  upon  all,  whether  citizens  or  foreigners,  whether  from  the 
North  or  from  the  South,  is  not  founded  on  any  assumed  superior 
claim  of  the  North  to  the  common  heritage  of  the  country,  but 
simply  on  the  principle  that  slavery  is  a  municipal  institution,  and 
therefore  can  exist  only  where  there  is  some  law  to  create  and  to  en¬ 
force  it.  Carolina  can  not  justly  claim  that  her  slave  laws  should 
have  authority  in  France,  or  England,  or  in  the  Northern  states, 
or  any  where  else  beyond  her  own  territory.  Whether  this  rea¬ 
soning  be  correct  or  not,  yet  since  the  doctrine  that  slavery  is  a 
municipal  institution  was  the  common  faith  of  the  country  when 
the  Constitution  was  adopted,  and  when  the  Southern  states  en¬ 
tered  the  Union,  as  it  was  held  by  all  our  presidents  and  statesmen 
until  the  time  of  Mr.  Calhoun,  with  few,  if  any  exceptions,  it  can 
not  now  be  justly  regarded  as  a  grievance.  3.  It  may  be  further 
answered  to  this  complaint,  that  all  difficulty  on  this  score  was 
avoided  by  the  Missouri  Compromise,  and  might  be  removed  by  a 
restoration  of  that  agreement.  It  is  at  best  a  theoretical  difficulty, 
as  the  South  has  neither  freemen  nor  slaves  to  spare  for  the  terri¬ 
tories.  Their  slaves  are  too  valuable  where  they  are,  to  send  them 
into  regions  where  their  labor  could  be  turned  to  little  or  no 
account. 

At  other  times,  by  equality  of  the  states  is  meant  an  equal  con¬ 
trol  in  the  administration  of  the  government.  In  the  past  history 
of  the  country  the  South  has  been  dominant.  Although  in  a 
minority  as  to  population,  it  has  shaped  the  whole  policy  of  the 
country.  A  compact  minority  in  almost  all  governments  holds  the 
balance  of  power.  The  Germans,  although  not  more  than  one 
third  of  the  people,  secured  the  control  of  the  state  of  Pennsylvania 
through  a  great  part  of  its  history.  And  so  the  South,  by  throw¬ 
ing  her  weight  into  one  party  or  the  other,  has  hitherto  secured  the 
ascendency.  A  protecting  tariff,  a  national  bank,  internal  improve¬ 
ments,  were  the  policy  of  the  country  so  long  as  the  South  was  in 
their  favor ;  when  she  turned  against  them  they  were  abandoned. 
This  state  of  things  is  passing  away.  By  the  inevitable  progress 
of  events,  the  sceptre  is  changing  hands.  The  more  rapid  increase 
of  the  free  states  in  number  and  in  population,  is  more  and  more 
reducing  the  relative  importance  and  power  of  the  South.  This 
result  has  been  long  foreseen.  Southern  statesmen  have  predicted 
that  the  time  must  come  when  the  South  could  no  longer  control  the 
policy  of  the  country.  Not  to  command,  however,  is  in  their  esti¬ 
mation  to  submit.  Not  to  be  masters,  in  the  logic  of  the  extremists, 


THE  STATE  OF  THE  COUNTRY. 


21 


is  to  be  slaves.  And  hence  the  frequent  and  fervid  declamations 
addressed  to  the  people,  against  the  tyranny  of  the  North,  and  the 
inevitable  servitude  of  the  South,  should  it  remain  in  the  Union. 
The  thing  complained  of  is  not  the  irresponsible  power  of  a  ma¬ 
jority.  The  founders  of  our  government  were  fully  convinced  that 
no  despotism  could  be  more  intolerable  than  a  pure  democracy, 
where  the  majority  had  unrestricted  power.  Our  national  legisla¬ 
ture  is  restricted  within  very  narrow  limits  by  the  Constitution.  It 
has  not  the  political  omnipotence  of  the  Parliament  of  Grreat  Britain^ 
which  can  change  the  dynasty,  abolish  the  peerage,  or  the  church 
establishment,  and  model  at  pleasure  the  institutions  of  the  country. 
Our  Congress  has  no  such  power.  Its  authority  is  limited  by  a 
written  Constitution.  It  is  held  in  check  by  the  distribution  of 
power,  and  by  the  legislative  authority  vested  in  two  houses — the 
one  composed  of  the  representatives  of  the  states  without  regard  to 
their  relative  size  or  importance.  In  every  way,  therefore,  that 
human  wisdom  could  devise,  the  minority  is  protected  from  the 
tyranny  of  the  majority.  Nor  is  the  equality  claimed  by  the  dis- 
unionists,  the  equal  rights  of  the  states  one  with  another ;  for  this  is 
now  enjoyed  and  secured  to  the  fullest  extent.  The  thing  claimed 
is  this,  viz.  that  the  slave  interest  should  have  equal  political  con¬ 
trol  with  all  the  other  interests  of  the  country  combined.  This  is 
what  is  meant  by  equality.  Less  than  this  is  declared  to  be  incon¬ 
sistent  with  their  safety  and  honor.  This  is  the  idea  which,  by  the 
teaching  of  Mr.  Calhoun,  has  taken  thorough  possession  of  the 
minds  of  a  certain  class  of  Southern  politicians.  The  correctness 
of  this  representation  is  proved  beyond  question,  by  the  nature  of 
the  means  proposed  to  correct  the  inequality  complained  of,  or 
dreaded.  These  remedies  are  all  directed  to  the  natural,  peaceful, 
and  normal  operation  of  the  Constitution.  They  require  that  the 
Constitution  should  be  changed  in  order  to  secure  the  equality  de¬ 
manded.  Thus  it  has  been  proposed  that  the  number  of  slavehold¬ 
ing  states  shall  always  be  equal  to  that  of  the  free  states  ;  tha.t  every 
new  free  state  admitted  into  the  Union  should  be  counterbalanced 
by  a  new  slave  state.  Thus  the  equality  of  the  representatives  of 
the  slave  interest  in  the  Senate — which  has  controlling  power  in 
the  government — with  the  representatives  of  the  free  states,  would 
be  preserved.  Another  proposal  is,  that  there  should  be  two  Presi¬ 
dents — one  chosen  by  the  North,  and  the  other  by  the  South,  and 
that  their  concurrence  should  be  necessary  to  the  validity  of  any 
Presidential  action.  Still  another  proposition  is,  that  the  Constitu¬ 
tion  should  be  so  altered  as  to  make  a  majority  of  the  whole  of  the 


22 


THE  STATE  OF  THE  COUNTRY. 


slaveholding  states,  and  a  majority  of  the  free  states,  necessary  to 
the  election  of  a  President ;  and  further,  that  no  law  should  take 
effect  unless  sanctioned  by  a  majority  of  representatives  from  both 
sections  of  the  country.  These  are  so  many  devices  to  make  one 
equal  to  three.  They  amount  to  an  avowal  on  the  part  of  their 
advocates,  that  slaveholders  can  not  live  in  any  political  community 
which  they  do  not  control.  The  propositions  above  referred  to  all 
assume  that  the  slave  interest  must  be  dominant ;  that  nothing  shall 
be  done  without  its  consent ;  no  officer,  whether  civil  or  military, 
judicial  or  executive,  shall  be  appointed  ;  no  law  enacted,  no  mea¬ 
sure  adopted,  without  its  approbation,  and  consequently  for  its 
benefit.  This  supposes  that  the  interest  of  the  slaveholders  is  an¬ 
tagonistic  to  all  others,  and  is  so  important  that  it  may  rightfully 
be  dominant,  or  at  least  coordinate  and  limiting.  It  assumes  that 
three  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  shall  equal  twenty  millions.  As 
this  is  a  physical  and  moral  impossibility  under  our  present  Con¬ 
stitution,  it  is  proposed  to  alter  it,  or  failing  that,  to  dissolve  the 
Union.  This  is  the  light  in  which  the  claim  to  equality,  as  inter¬ 
preted  and  urged  by  the  disunionists,  presents  itself  to  the  people 
of  the  North.  It  is  an  unrighteous  and  unreasonable  demand.  It 
is  demanding  far  more  than  the  Constitution,  which  we  have  all 
sworn  to  support,  ever  contemplated.  Equality  of  all  classes  in 
the  eye  of  the  law,  equality  of  the  States  as  to  rights  and  privileges, 
equal  protection,  equal  liberty,  equal  facilities  of  advancement, 
equal  access  to  all  places  of  honor  and  power — in  short,  constitu¬ 
tional  equality  in  its  fullest  extent,  is  what  all  are  willing  to  con¬ 
cede.  But  that  one  particular  interest,  one  special  class  of  the  com¬ 
munity,  should  have  equal  weight  and  influence  with  all  the  others 
combined — that  three  hundred  thousand  should  equal  twenty  mil¬ 
lions — is,  at  least  under  our  present  Constitution,  an  impossibility. 
And  if  this  is  the  ultimatum  of  the  extreme  South,  disunion  is  in¬ 
evitable.  Our  present  system  gives  every  security  and  advantage 
to  the  slaveholdino;  class,  which  can  be  reasonablv  demanded.  The 
Constitution  permits  the  representation  of  slave  property,  while  no 
other  species  of  property  is  allowed  a  representation  in  the  national 
legislature.  Florida,  with  its  fortv-seven  thousand  of  white  inhabi- 
tants,  and  its  twenty-three  millions  of  property,  has  as  much  influ¬ 
ence  in  the  Senate  of  the  United  States,  as  New-York,  with  its 
three  millions  of  inhabitants,  and  one  thousand  millions  of  property. 
Is  not  this  enough  ?  There  are  only  twenty -five  thousand  slave¬ 
holders  in  South-Carolina,  and  yet  they  have  really  as  much  con¬ 
trol  of  the  Government  as  the  two  million  five  hundred  thousand 


THE  STATE  OF  THE  COUNTRY. 


23 


people  in  Pennsylvania.  Of  the  eighteen  Presidential  elections 
which  have  been  held  since  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution,  twelve 
resulted  in  the  choice  of  slaveholders,  and  six  in  the  choice  of  non¬ 
slaveholders.  Of  three  hundred  and  seven  principal  appointments 
under  the  Constitution,  two  hundred  and  four  have  been  held  by 
slaveholders.  Surely,  the  complaint  of  want  of  equality  on  the 
part  of  the  slaveholders,  is  of  all  others  the  most  unfounded. 

We  have  thus  endeavored  calmly  and  fairly  to  estimate  the 
grievances  alleged  by  our  Southern  brethren.  We  have  endea¬ 
vored  to  show  that  the  people  of  the  North  are  not  responsible  for 
the  defamatory  language  of  the  abolitionists  ;  nor  for  any  attempts 
to  create  dissatisfaction  among  the  slaves.  We  have  endeavored 
to  prove  that  the  constitutional  compact  with  regard  to  the  restora¬ 
tion  of  fugitive  slaves  has  not  been  violated  ;  because  the  Federal 
Government,  the  only  constitutional  organ  for  the  performance  of 
that  duty,  has  never  refused  or  failed  to  perform  it  to  the  extent 
of  its  ability ;  and  because,  even  if  any  state  attempted  to  nullify 
the  fugitive  slave  law,  the  Constitution  provides  redress,  first  in  the 
judicial,  and  then  in  the  military  power  of  the  government.  And, 
finally,  we  have  endeavored  to  show  that  the  complaint  of  the 
want  of  equality  has  no  rational  foundation. 

It  is  however  assumed  that  any  state  has  the  right  to  secede  from 
the  Union,  whenever  it  sees  fit.  It  matters  not,  therefore,  whether 
these  grievances  are  real  or  imaginary,  if  the  cotton  states  believe 
that  their  interests  will  be  promoted  by  secession,  they  have  the 
right  to  secede.  This  is  the  ground  taken  by  the  leaders  of  the 
secession  movement.  They  desire  a  dismemberment  of  the  Union  ; 
they  wish  that  the  cotton  states  alone,  or  in  connection  with  the 
other  slaveholding  states,  should  be  constituted  into  an  independent 
nation.  Complaints  of  injustice  or  inequality,  predictions  of  ag¬ 
gressions,  are  only  the  means  employed  to  arouse  the  public  mind, 
and  to  make  the  people  willing  to  sever  the  tie  which  binds  them 
to  the  other  states.  Is,  then,  secession  one  of  the  reserved  rights 
of  the  states  ?  Is  any  state  at  liberty  to  withdraw  from  the  Union 
whenever  she  sees  fit  ?  The  question  does  not  concern  the  right 
of  revolution.  Eevolution  and  secession  are  very  different  things. 
The  one  is  the  overthrow  of  a  government,  on  the  ground  of  the 
abuse  of  its  powers,  by  those  who  are  legally  and  de  facto  subject 
to  its  authority.  It  is  admitted  to  be  illegal.  It  is  an  act  of  vio¬ 
lence,  as  much  as  homicide,  and  is,  like  homicide,  to  be  justified 
only  by  necessity.  The  other  is  claimed  to  be  a  peaceful,  orderly 
process,  a  mere  dissolution  of  a  partnership,  which  is  binding  only 


24 


THE  STATE  OF  THE  COUNTRY. 


during  tlie  consent  of  parties.  The  leaders  of  the  secession  move- 
men  regard  the  Union  as  a  mere  partnership ;  a  treaty  between 
sovereign  states,  which  may  be  dissolved  by  any  one  of  the  parties, 
by  giving  due  notice.  That  thk  is  a  false  view  of  the  case  is 
evident : 

1.  From  the  very  idea  of  a  nation.  It  is  a  body  politic,  inde¬ 
pendent  of  all  others,  and  indissolubly  one.  That  is,  indissoluble 
at  the  mere  option  of  its  constituent  parts.  As  the  Abbeville  Dis¬ 
trict  can  not  secede  at  pleasure  from  the  state  of  South- Carol  in  a,  so 
neither  can  South-Carolina  se*cede  at  pleasure  from  the  United 
States,  provided  the  United  States  constitute  a  nation.  That  these 
states  do  constitute  one  nation,  as  distinguished  from  a  number  of 
nations,  bound  together  by  treaty,  is  proved  from  the  fact  that  they 
in  their  collective  capacity  have  all  the  attributes,  and  exercise  all 
the  prerogatives  of  a  nation.  They  have  national  unity.  They 
have  one  name,  one  flag,  one  President,  one  legislature,  one  Su¬ 
preme  Court,  one  navy  and  army.  The  authority,  legislative,  ju¬ 
dicial,  and  executive,  of  the  general  government,  extends  to  every 
part  of  the  land,  and  is  every  where,  within  its  sphere,  supreme. 
That-  the  states  are  independent  and  sovereign,  within  constitu¬ 
tional  limits,  in  the  management  of  their  internal  affairs,  is  no  more 
inconsistent  with  the  unity  of  the  nation,  than  the  like  independ¬ 
ence  of  municipal  corporations  in  England  is  inconsistent  with  the 
national  unity  of  Gfreat  Britain.  Our  Constitution,  says  Mr.  Mad¬ 
ison,  is  neither  a  consolidated  government  nor  a  confederated  gov¬ 
ernment,  but  a  mixture  of  both.  “  It  was  not  formed,”  he  con¬ 
tinues,  “by  the  government  of  the  component  states,  as  the  Fed¬ 
eral  Government,  for  which  it  was  substituted.  Uor  was  it  formed 
by  a  majority  of  the  people  of  the  United  States  as  a  single  com- 
munitjr,  in  the  manner  of  a  consolidated  government.  It  was 
formed  by  the  states ;  that  is,  by  the  people  in  each  of  the  states 
acting  in  their  highest  sovereign  capacity,  and  formed  consequently 
by  the  same  authority  which  formed  the  state  constitutions.  Be¬ 
ing  thus  derived  from  the  same  source  as  the  constitutions  of  the 
states,  it  has,  within  each  state,  the  same  authority  as  the  constitu¬ 
tion  of  the  state  ;  and  is  as  much  a  constitution,  in  the  strict  sense 
of  the  term,  within  its  prescribed  sphere,  as  the  constitutions  of  the 
states  are  within  their  respective  spheres ;  but  with  this  essential 
and  obvious  difference,  that  being  a  compact  among  the  states  in 
their  highest  sovereign  capacity,  and  constituting  the  people  thereof 
one  people  for  certain  purposes,  it  can  not  be  altered  or  annulled  at 
the  will  of  the  states  individually,  as  the  constitution  of  a  state  may 


THE  STATE  OF  THE  COUNTRY. 


25 


be  at  its  individual  will.”  (Letter  of  Mr.  Madison,  quoted  by 
Amos  Kendall,  Esq.,  in  the  Washington  Star.)  The  United  States, 
therefore,  under  the  Constitution,  are  one  people  ;  they  are  one  na¬ 
tion,  in  virtue  of  a  common  Constitution  within  its  sphere,  in  the 
face  of  all  other  nations,  just  as  any  state  is  one,  in  virtue  of  its 
constitution.  But  if  a  nation,  there  is  no  possibility  of  its  dismem¬ 
berment,  except  by  rebellion  or  revolution,  unless  by  common  con¬ 
sent.  The  very  idea  of  a  nation  is;  that  it  is  one,  independent,  or¬ 
ganized  political  community,  whose  separate  parts  are  not  severally 
independent  of  each  other,  but  constitute  an  organic  whole.  The 
word  right  has  both  a  legal  and  a  moral  sense.  No  constituent 
member  of  a  nation  can  ever  have  the  legal  right  to  secede  or  re¬ 
bel.  It  may  have  a  moral  right,  in  case  of  absolute  necessity. 
But  having  no  legal  right,  it  exercises  its  moral  right  of  rebellion, 
subject  to  the  legal  and  moral  right  of  the  government  against 
which  it  rebels,  to  resist  or  to  concede,  as  it  may  see  fit. 

2.  A  second  argument  against  the  right  of  secession  is  found  in 
the  very  words  and  avowed  design  of  the  compact.  The  contract¬ 
ing  parties  stipulate  that  the  Union  shall  be  “  perpetual.”  A  per¬ 
petual  lease  is  one  that  can  not  be  annulled  at  pleasure.  A  per¬ 
petual  grant  is  one  which  can  not  at  will  be  recalled.  A  perpetual 
union  is  one  which  can  not  be  dissolved  except  on  the  consent  of 
all  the  parties  to  that  union.  Secession  is  a  breach  of  faith.  It  is 
morally  a  crime,  as  much  as  the  secession  of  a  regiment  from  the 
battle-field  would  be.  If  the  country  were  at  war  and  one  state 
should  withdraw  her  contingent,  on  the  ground  that  her  officers 
were  not  put  in  supreme  command,  or  that  their  rations  were  not 
to  their  taste,  she  would  retire  draggling  her  standard  in  the  mire 
of  ineffaceable  disgrace.  It  seems  almost  too  plain  for  argument, 
that  if  the  several  states,  or  the  people  thereof  in  their  sovereign 
capacity,  have  pledged  themselves  to  a  perpetual  union,  and  ratified 
their  plighted  faith  by  an  oath,  no  one  state  can  secede  without  in¬ 
curring  the  twofold  criminality  of  breach  of  faith  and  violation  of 
an  oath. 

3.  A  third  argument  against  the  right  of  secession  is  drawn  from 
the  historical  fact,  that  the  right  was  at  first  desired  by  some  of  the 
states  and  formally  rejected.  New- York  wished  to  adopt  the  Con¬ 
stitution  on  condition  that  she  might  be  permitted  to  withdraw 
should  she  see  fit.  Madison  wrote  to  Hamilton  that  such  a  condi¬ 
tional  ratification  of  the  Constitution  was  worse  than  a  rejection. 
New- York,  therefore,  concluded  to  come  in  on  the  same  terms  with 
the  other  states,  with  the  express  understanding  that  there  was  to 


26 


THE  STATE  OF  THE  COUNTRY. 


be  no  secession.  These  facts  have  been  recently  presented  in  all 
the  papers,  and  need  not  be  enlarged  npon.  It  is  plain,  therefore, 
from  the  history  of  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution,  that  the  right 
of  secession  was  denied.  It  was  on  this  understanding  that  South- 
Carolina  and  all  the  other  states  entered  the  Union.  For  one  or 
more  of  them  now  to  withdraw,  must  therefore  be  either  justifia¬ 
ble  rebellion  or  a  breach  of  faith. 

4.  This  may  be  said  to  be  res  adjudicata.  All  parties  are  com¬ 
mitted  against  the  doctrine  of  secession.  When  the  New-England 
states,  under  the  pressure  of  the  embargo  laws  and  of  the  evils  to 
them  of  the  war  of  1812,  sent  delegates  to  the  Hartford  Conven¬ 
tion  to  consult  about  the  means  of  redress,  the  measure  was  con¬ 
demned  with  one  voice  by  the  dominant  party  as  tending  to  seces¬ 
sion.  The  Richmond  Enquirer,  then  in  the  height  of  its  influence, 
the  recognized  exponent  of  the  principles  of  the  Jeffersonian  party 
at  the  South,  elaborately  proved  that  no  state  or  number  of  states 
had  the  right  to  separate  from  the  Union  unless  by  the  consent  of 
the  other  states.  In  1814  that  journal  held  the  following  language  : 
“No  man,  no  association  of  one  state  or  set  of  states,  has  a  right 
to  withdraw  from  the  Union  of  its  own  account.  The  same  power 
which  knit  us  together  can  unknit  us.  The  same  formality  which 
formed  the  links  of  the  Union  is  necessary  to  dissolve  it.  The 
majority  of  the  states  which  formed  the  Union  must  consent  to  the 
withdrawal  of  any  one  branch  of  it.  Until  that  consent  has  been 
obtained,  any  attempt  to  dissolve  the  Union  or  distract  the  effi¬ 
ciency  of  its  constitutional  law,  is  treason — treason  to  all  intents  and 
purposes What  was  true  then  is  true  now.  And  treason  by  the 
law  of  Grod  and  man  is  one  of  the  greatest  of  crimes. 

5.  The  manifold  absurdities,  abnormities,  and  evils  which  flow  from 
the  doctrine  of  secession,  afford  a  sufficient  proof  of  its  unsoundness. 
These  have  of  late  been  abundantly  presented  in  the  public  prints. 
The  United  States  gave  fifteen  millions  of  dollars  for  Louisiana,  for 
the  express  purpose  of  securing  command  of  the  Mississippi  river. 
According  to  the  doctrine  of  secession  Louisiana  may  secede,  and  the 
whole  advantage  of  the  purchase  be  lost.  Ten  millions  were  paid 
for  Texas,  thousands  of  lives  and  millions  of  dollars  were  expended 
in  the  Mexican  war  for  her  security,  and  the  acquisition  of  Cali¬ 
fornia.  Five  millions  were  paid  for  Florida,  one  hundred  and 
twenty  millions  have  been  offered  for  Cuba.  It  is  absurd  to  sup¬ 
pose  that  our  government  can  be  founded  on  the  theory  of  secession, 
and  yet  the  people  be  filling  to  spend  such  enormous  sums  for 
territory  to  which  they  would  acquire  no  title.  If  the  right  exists, 


THE  STATE  OF  THE  COUNTRY. 


27 


it  belongs  to  all  tlie  states  and  at  all  times.  The  country  may  be 
engaged  in  a  perilous  war,  and  one  half  the  states  may  legally  secede 
and  leave  the  remainder  to  bear  the  consequences.  Suppose  Louisi¬ 
ana  or  Texas  had  seceded  in  the  rear  of  our  army  during  the  Mexi¬ 
can  war,  and  cut  off  our  resources.  Would  that  have  been  a  legal 
procedure?  Or  if  the  whole  people  should  join  in  making  the 
Pacific  railroad,  may  Missouri  and  California  at  its  termini  secede, 
and  keep  it  all  to  themselves  ?  Such  are  some  of  the  consequences 
of  this  theory.  It  is  refuted  by  the  argumentum  ad  ahsurdum.  Se¬ 
cession,  as  Mr.  Madison  says,  is  revolution,  and  revolution  is  rebel¬ 
lion,  and  rebellion  is  at  least  illegal.  Whether  in  any  case  morally 
right,  depends  on  circumstances.  If  not  justified  by  intolerable 
oppression  and  injustice,  it  is  one  of  the  greatest  of  crimes.  That 
the  Southern  states  are  not  oppressed,  is  plain  from  their  own 
declaration.  They  boast  of  their  prosperity  and  power.  They 
claim  to  be  the  richest  portion  of  the  Union.  They  contrast  their 
$200,000,000  of  exports  with  the  $100,000,000  exported  from  the 
North.  Georgia  has  doubled  her  taxable  property  in  the  last  ten 
years.  The  same  general  prosperity  prevails  throughout  the  South. 
Of  oppression,  therefore,  there  can  be  no  pretence.  As  to  inj  ustice, 
the  only  things  complained  of  are  the  difficulty  thrown  in  the  way 
of  the  restoration  of  fugitive  slaves,  and  the  territorial  question. 
These  grounds  of  complaint  have  been  considered.  The  North  has 
not  broken  faith  with  the  South  as  to  fugitive  slaves.  The  Federal 
Government,  which  alone  has  the  right  to  restore  them,  has  never 
refused  to  do  so.  The  difficulty  is  not  in  any  breach  of  faith.  It 
is  in  the  nature  of  the  service.  Men  at  the  North  are  willing  to  let 
the  General  Government  do  the  work,  but  they  do  not  choose  to  be 
made  slave-catchers  themselves.  The  present  fugitive  slave  law 
could  not  be  executed  efficiently  at  the  South,  except  by  federal 
officers.  We  would  like  to  see  Senator  Chesnut  or  the  Hon.  Mr. 
Ehett  called  to  join  in  the  pursuit  of  a  fugitive  slave.  They  would 
do  what  men  here  do.  They  would  say,  The  work  must  be  done, 
but  let  those,  whose  business  it  is,  see  to  it.  Neither  oppression 
nor  injustice  can  be  pleaded  in  justification  of  disunion.  Disunion 
was  determined  upon  for  other  reasons ;  these  complaints  are  used 
to  inflame  the  public  mind.  We  do  not  doubt  that  many  excellent 
men,  many  sincere  Christians,  at  the  South  have  been  brought  to 
believe  that  secession  is  legally  and  morally  right.  But  it  is  no  new 
thing  in  the  history  of  the  world  that  great  crimes  have  been  thought 
right.  There  never  was  an  auto  da  fe  which  was  not  sanctioned  by 
the  ministers  of  religion.  The  greatest  crimes  have  been  perpe- 


28 


THE  STATE  OF  THE  COUNTRY. 


trated  by  those  who  thought  they  were  doing  God  service.  The 
fact,  therefore,  that  good  men  approve  of  secession,  that  they  pray 
over  disunion,  that  they  rise  from  their  knees  and  resolve  to  com¬ 
mit  the  parricidal  act,  does  not  prove  it  to  be  right.  It  only  proves 
how  perverted  the  human  mind  may  become  under  the  influence 
of  passion  and  the  force  of  popular  feeling. 

This  is  the  light  in  which  we  think  this  subject  ought  to  be 
viewed.  Is  disunion  morally  right  ?  Does  it  not  involve  a  breach 
of  faith,  and  a  violation  of  the  oaths  by  which  that  faith  was  con¬ 
firmed?  We  believe,  under  existing  circumstances,  that  it  does, 
and  therefore  it  is  as  dreadful  a  blow  to  the  church  as  it  is  to  the 
state.  If  a  crime  at  all,  it  is  one  the  heinousness  of  which  can  only 
be  imperfectly  estimated  from  its  probable  effects  ;  but  these  are  sad 
enough.  It  blots  our  name  from  among  the  nations  of  the  earth. 
The  United  States  of  North  America  will  no  longer  exist.  All  the 
recollections  which  cluster  around  those  words,  all  the  bright  hopes 
attached  to  them  for  the  future,  must  be  sunk  forever.  The  glori¬ 
ous  flag  which  has  so  long  floated  in  the  advance  of  civilization  and 
liberty,  must  be  furled-  We  lose  our  position  as  one  of  the  fore¬ 
most  nations  of  the  earth — the  nation  of  the  future — the  great  Pro¬ 
testant  power,  to  stand  up  for  civil  and  religious  freedom.  All 
despots  will  rejoice,  and  all  the  friends  of  liberty  mourn  over  our  fall. 
We  write  thus  in  the  apprehension  that  the  whole  South  should 
secede.  If  the  movement  were  to  be  confined  to  South-Carolina, 
it  would  be  simply  absurd.  The  attempt  to  make  a  nation  of  a 
state,  with  a  white  population  less  than  half  that  of  Philadelphia, 
without  any  thing  to  distinguish  them  for  wealth,  intelligence, 
moral  power,  or  culture,  from  the  other  states  of  the  Union,  would 
be  madness.*  But  the  loss  of  a  single  plank  may  cause  the  noblest 

*  In  speaking  thus,  we  are  only  repeating  the  sentiments  of  a  leading  Carolinian.  In 
1851,  the  Hon.  W.  W.  Boyce  addressed  the  following  protest  against  secession,  to  the 
people  of  South-Carolina :  “  South-Carolina  can  not  become  a  nation.  God  makes  na¬ 
tions,  not  man.  You  can  not  extemporize  a  nation  out  of  South-Carolina.  It  is  simply 
impossible;  we  have  not  the  resources.  We  could  exist  by  tolerance,  and  what  that 
tolerance  would  be,  when  we  consider  the  present  hostile  spirit  of  the  age  to  the  institu¬ 
tion  of  slavery,  of  which  we  would  be  looked  upon  as  the  peculiar  exponent,  all  may 
readily  imagine.  I  trust  we  may  never  have  to  look  upon  the  painful  and  humiliating 
spectacle. 

“  From  the  weakness  of  our  national  government,  a  feeling  of  insecurity  would  arise, 
and  capital  would  take  the  alarm  and  leave  us.  But  it  may  be  said,  Let  capital  go.  To 
this  I  reply  that  capital  is  the  life-blood  of  a  modern  community,  and  in  losing  it,  you 
lose  the  vitality  of  the  state. 

“  Secession,  separate  nationality,  with  all  its  burdens,  is  no  remedy.  It  is  no  redress 
for  the  past ;  it  is  no  security  for  the  future.  It  is  only  a  magnificent  sacrifice  of  the 


29 


THE  STATE  OF  THE  COUNTRY. 

ship  to  founder.  The  secession  of  South-Carolina  may  draw  after 
it  that  of  Georgia  and  the  other  cotton  states.  This  is  possible ; 
although  how  those  states  can  contemplate  with  complacency  the 
position  they  must  occupy  in  a  confederacy  by  themselves,  is  more 
than  we  can  tell.  They  can  exist  only  by  sufferance.  Any  great 
naval  power,  as  France  or  England,  could  at  any  moment,  by  inter¬ 
rupting  their  commerce,  reduce  them  to  the  greatest  distress.  They 
would  attract  to  themselves  all  the  slaves  of  the  country,  and  then 
how  could  they  exist  in  the  midst  of  an  anti-slavery  world  ?  It  is 
only  in  the  event  of  Virginia,  with  her  venerable  name,  her  political 
power,  her  commanding  influence,  joining  in  the  secession,  and 
drawing  with  her  all  the  other  slaveholding  states,  that  the  full 
measure  of  the  evils  of  disunion  would  come  upon  us.  Then,  it  is 
difficult  to  see  how  the  irritation  arising  from  conterminous  inde¬ 
pendent  states,  the  one  slaveholding  and  the  other  free,  should  fail 
to  produce  collision,  and  collision  lead  to  civil  w^ar  and  servile  in¬ 
surrection.  It  is  the  possibility,  or  probability,  of  such  horrors 
following  this  secession  movement,  that  makes  us  view  the  matter 
as  so  worthy  of  condemnation.  As  to  the  mere  prosperity  of  the 
•  North,  we  see  no  reason  why  it  may  not  do  as  well  without  polit¬ 
ical  union  with  the  South,  as  Canada  does  wuthout  a  like  union 
with  the  United  States.  Th.e  extent  and  resources  of  the  country 
above  Mason  and  Dixon’s  line,  are  far  greater  than  those  of  almost 
any  modern  empire.  The  time  may  probably  soon  come  when 
Canada  and  the  Northern  states  would  be  peaceably  united  in  one 
great  confederacy,  and  the  free  portion  of  the  country  would  have  a 
career  before  it  scarcely  less  glorious  than  ever.  All  this  supposes 
disunion  to  be  peaceable.  As  we  fear  this  is  impossible,  we  look  upon 
disunion  as  only  another  name  for  destruction.  A  Southern  paper 
says :  “  The  first  fugitive  that  escapes  after  dissolution,  will  be 

present,  without  in  any  wise  gaining  in  the  future.  We  are  told,  however,  that  it  is 
resistance,  and  we  must  not  submit  to  the  late  action  of  Congress.  Now,  I  would  like  to 
know  which  one  of  these  measures  we  resist  by  secession.  It  is  not  the  prohibition  of 
slave-marts  in  the  District  of  Columbia.  It  is  not  the  purchase  of  the  Texas  territory. 
It  is  certainly  not  the  admission  of  California.  Which  aggression,  then,  do  we  resist  by 
secession  ?  These  are  all  the  recent  aggressions  which  we  resist  now  by  secession. 
Secession,  gallant  as  may  be  the  spirit  which  prompts  it,  is  only  a  new  form  of  sub¬ 
mission. 

“  For  the  various  reasons  I  have  stated,  I  object,  in  as  strong  terms  as  I  can,  to  the 
secession  of  South-Carolina.  Such  is  the  intensity  of  my  conviction  upon  the  subject, 
that,  if  secession  should  take  place — of  which  I  have  no  idea,  for  I  can  not  believe  in 
the  existence  of  such  a  stupendous  madness — I  shall  consider  the  institution  of  slavery 
as  doomed,  and  that  the  Great  God  in  our  blindness  has  made  us  the  instrument  of  its 
destruction.” 


30 


THE  STATE  OF  THE  COUNTRY. 


equivalent  to  a  declaration  of  war.”  One  of  tire  most  distinguished 
advocates  of  secession  tells  the  people  of  South-Oarolina  not  to  de¬ 
ceive  themselves  with  the  expectation  that  disunion  does  not  mean 
war.  It  seems  to  be  the  general  impression,  North  and  South,  that 
rushing  a  state  out  of  the  Union,  without  preliminary  action  on  the 
part  of  the  other  states,  the  sudden  and  violent  disruption  of  the 
ties  which  bind  together  the  complicated  system  of  our  national  and 
state  governments,  is  hardly  possible,  especially  in  the  present  state 
of  public  feeling,  without  hostile  collision.  And  the  first  conflict 
will  be  like  a  spark  in  a  magazine  of  powder.  The  responsibility, 
therefore,  assumed  by  those  whose  who  are  urging  on  secession, 
which  all  parties  have  united  in  denouncing  as  treason,  is  indeed 
fearful.  No  part  of  the  Union  is  free  from  guilt  in  this  matter. 
The  North  has  its  sins  to  answer  for.  But  if  the  views  presented 
in  the  foregoing  pages  are  correct,  the  blood  and  misery  which  may 
attend  the  dissolution  of  the  confederacy  must  lie  mainly  at  the  door 
of  those  who  for  selfish  ends  labor  to  effect  it,  who  wish  for  disunion 
as  a  means  of  prosperity.  What  is  to  be  the  effect  of  this  state  of 
things  on  the  church  and  the  interests  of  religion?  How  are  those 
churches  to  be  held  together,  whose  members  are  nearly  equally 
divided  between  the  North  and  South  ?  The  papers  already  an¬ 
nounce  the  int  roduction  of  a  resolution  into  the  Synod  of  South - 
Carolina,  for  the  dissolution  of  its  connection  with  the  General 
Assembly  of  the  Presbyterian  Church.  If  we  are  to  be  plunged 
into  the  horrors  of  civil  war  and  servile  insurrections,  no  tongue 
can  tell  how  the  cause  of  the  Redeemer  must  suffer  throughout  our 
whole  land.  It  seems  impossible  that  Christian  men  can  blind  their 
eyes  to  these  probable  consequences  of  disunion.  The  eloquent 
appeal  of  Dr.  Dabney,  of  Virginia,  made  through  the  columns  of 
the  North- Carolina  Presbyterian ,  to  the  Christians  of  the  South,  can 
hardly  fail  to  produce  a  salutary  impression.  And  should  the 
President,  as  is  generally  anticipated,  earnestly  recommend  in  his 
message  to  Congress,  a  convention  of  the  states,  that  disunion,  if  it 
must  come,  may  at  least  be  peaceably  effected,  the  public  sentiment 
of  the  country  would  demand  that  his  counsels  should  be  heeded. 
Under  those  circumstances,  if  Christians  at  the  South  do  not  pro¬ 
test  against  immediate  action,  we  shall  conclude  that  God  has  given 
us  up. 

But  is  disunion  inevitable  ?  It  is  of  course  impossible  by  any 
concessions  or  compromise,  to  arrest  the  course  of  those  who  de¬ 
sire  disunion  for  its  own  sake ;  who  believe  that  the  Southern 
states  will  be  more  secure  and  prosperous  in  an  independent  con- 


THE  STATE  OF  THE  COUNTRY. 


31 


federacy  than  under  the  present  Constitution,  no  matter  how  faith¬ 
fully  it  may  be  administered.  But  we  believe  that  this  class  is 
very  small.  It  consists  of  the  Garrisonians  of  the  North  and  the 
professed  disunionists  at  the  South.  The  former  desire  the  disso¬ 
lution  of  the  Union,  because  they  are  persuaded,  as  are  thousands, 
North  and  South,  that  such  dissolution  would  be  the  doom  of  sla¬ 
very.  The  others  desire  it  for  their  own  ends.  The  mass  of  the 
people  would  gladly  preserve  the  sacred  edifice,  cemented  with  the 
blood  of  our  fathers,  if  we  could  only  be  reconciled  and  life  to¬ 
gether  peaceably.  The  two  great  difficulties  which  stand  in  the 
way  of  this  harmonious  union,  are  the  fugitive  slave  law,  and  the 
territories.  As  to  the  former,  the  constitutional  claim  of  the  South 
is  undoubted,  but  the  difficulties  in  the  way  of  carrying  into  effect 
that  provision  of  the  Constitution  are  almost  insuperable.  These 
difficulties  do  not  arise  from  state  laws,  or  from  the  supineness  of 
the  General  Government,  but  from  the  laws  of  human  nature. 
The  compromise  which  has  been  proposed  on  this  point  is,  that 
the  North  should  pay  the  full  value  of  every  fugitive  slave.  This 
we  are  persuaded  the  North  would  gladly  do.  How  it  should  be 
done,  may  be  a  question  difficult  to  answer.  The  ends  to  be  ac¬ 
complished  are,  that  the  payment  should  be  prompt  and  without 
contention.  Neither  of  these  ends  could  be  secured  if  the  payment 
is  to  be  sought  from  the  separate  states  or  counties.  It  must  be 
made  by  the  General  Government,  and  may  be  reimbursed  from 
that  portion  of  the  price  of  the  public  lands  already  deposited  with 
the  states ;  or,  as  the  public  lands  are  common  property,  their  pro¬ 
ceeds  may  be  distributed  among  the  states,  and  the  amount  neces¬ 
sary  to  pay  for  fugitive  slaves  deducted  from  the  portion  due  to 
the  North.  Any  objections  to  this  scheme  are  trifling  compared 
with  the  importance  of  the  object  to  be  attained.  As  to  the  terri¬ 
tories,  let  the  Missouri  Compromise  be  restored,  the  abrogation  of 
which  is  the  immediate  source  of  all  our  present  troubles. 

To  the  restoration  of  the  Missouri  Compromise  we  do  not  see 
that  any  objection  founded  on  conscientious  principle  can  be 
urged.  1.  The  whole  North  with  quiet  consciences  acquiesced  in 
that  compromise.  Why  should  its  restoration  be  opposed  ?  2. 

Although  it  was  repealed  under  the  plea  that  the  Act  of  1820  bad 
no  constitutional  authority,  yet  it  may  be  made  perfectly  bind¬ 
ing  and  secure  as  a  voluntary  compact ;  or,  if  necessary,  by  a  con  • 
stitutional  guarantee.  3.  Its  restoration  does  not  imply  any  re¬ 
nunciation  of  the  principle  that  slavery  rests  on  the  lex  loci.  It 
leaves  that  question  just  where  it  is.  It  only  stipulates  that  south 


32 


THE  STATE  OF  THE  COUNTRY. 


of  the  latitude  36°30/  slavery  shall  not  be  prohibited  either  by  fede¬ 
ral  or  territorial  legislation.  4.  No  man’s  conscience,  therefore,  as 
it  seems  to  us,  who  accedes  to  this  measure,  can  charge  him  with 
being  responsible  for  the  introduction  of  slavery  by  legal  enact¬ 
ment  into  territory  now  free.  5.  The  border  states  and  conserva¬ 
tive  men  generally  at  the  South  would  be  satisfied  by  this  conces¬ 
sion.  The  choice,  therefore,  seems  to  be  between  compromise  and  all 
the  evils  of  disunion.  Should  this  choice  be  submitted  to  the  peo¬ 
ple,  who  can  doubt  that  the  vast  majority  of  them  would  joyfully 
vote  for  the  proposed  measure  ?  Certain  it  is  that  the  party  that 
puts  itself  clearly  in  the  wrong  is  lost.  And  especially  if  the  lead¬ 
ers  of  the  Republican  party  fail  to  secure  the  approbation  of  the 
moderate,  intelligent,  and  religious  men  of  the  Middle  and  North¬ 
ern  States,  by  refusing  all  compromise  and  assuming  a  defiant  atti¬ 
tude  towards  the  South,  they  will  ruin  themselves,  and,  we  fear, 
the  country.  May  God  grant  our  rulers  wisdom,  fidelity,  and 
moderation. 


Sold  at  the  New-York  Office  of  the  Princeton  Review,  530  Broadway. 


